[The first division of this section includes three poems-Fears in Solitude, France, an Ode, and Frost at Midnight, published by Coleridge in a separate quarto pamphlet in the year 1798. The second division contains The Nightingale and the most famous of all Coleridge's poems, The Ancient Mariner, both contributed to Lyrical Ballads in the same year.]

FRANCE. AN ODE.*

ARGUMENT.

First Stanza. An invocation to those objects in Nature the contemplation of which had inspired the Poet with a devotional love of Liberty. Second Stanza. The exultation of the Poet at the commencement of the French Revolution, and his unqualified abhorrence of the Alliance against the Republic. Third Stanza. The blasphemies and horrors during the domination of the Terrorists regarded by the Poet as a transient storm, and as the natural consequence of the former despotism and of the foul superstition of Popery. Reason, indeed, began to suggest many apprehensions; yet still the Poet struggled to retain the hope that France would make conquests by no other means than by presenting to the observation of Europe a people more happy and better instructed than under other forms of Government. Fourth Stanza. Switzerland, and the Poet's recantation. Fifth Stanza. An address to Liberty, in which the Poet expresses his conviction that those feelings and that grand ideal of Freedom which the mind attains by its contemplation of its individual nature, and of the sublime surrounding objects (see stanza the first) do not belong to men as a society, nor can possibly be either gratified or realized under any form of human government; but belong to the individual man, so far as he is pure, and inflamed with the love and adoration of God in Nature.

* First printed in The Morning Post of April 16, 1798, under the title of The Recantation: an Ode, and afterwards, with its

YE

I.

E Clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control!* Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye Woods! that listen to the night-bird's singing, Midway the smooth and perilous slope † reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have made a solemn music of the wind! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod, How oft, pursuing fancies holy,

My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound,
Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,

By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound!
O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high!
And O ye Clouds that far above me soar'd!
Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing sky!
Yea, everything that is and will be free!
Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be,
With what deep worship I have still adored
The spirit of divinest Liberty.

II.

When France in wrath her giant limbs uprear'd, And with that oath, which ‡smote air, earth, and

sea,

present title, in the same quarto pamphlet with Fears in Solitude. Reprinted in The Morning Post, Oct. 14, 1802, with the addition of an Argument.

* Veering your pathless march without control.-1802.

+ Steep.-1798.

Shook.-1802.

Stamp'd her strong foot and said she would be

free,

Bear witness for me, how I hoped and fear'd!
With what a joy my lofty gratulation*

Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band:
And when to whelm the disenchanted nation,
Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand,
The Monarchs march'd † in evil day,
And Britain join'd the dire array ;
Though dear her shores and circling ocean,
Though many friendships, many youthful loves
Had swoln the patriot emotion

And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves;

Yet still my voice, unalter'd, sang defeat

To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance,
And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat!
For ne'er, O Liberty! with partial aim

I dimm'd thy light or damp'd thy holy flame;
But bless'd the pæans of deliver'd France,
And hung my head and wept at Britain's name.

III.

"And what,” I said, "though Blasphemy's loud

scream

With that sweet music§ of deliverance strove ! Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream!

* Eager gratulation.-1802.
+ Spread.-Ib.

+ Moved.-lb.

§ Those sweet pæans.—Il.

Ye storms, that round the dawning east assembled, The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light!"

And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and

trembled,

[bright;

The dissonance ceased, and all seem'd calm and
When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory
Conceal'd with clustering wreaths of glory
When, insupportably* advancing,

Her arm made mockery of the warrior's ramp;
While timid looks of fury glancing,

Domestic treason, crush'd beneath her fatal stamp,

Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore;

Then I reproach'd † my fears that would not flee; "And soon," I said, "shall Wisdom teach her lore In the low huts of them that toil and groan! And, conquering by her happiness alone,

Shall France compel the nations to be free, Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth their own.

IV.

Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams!
I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,
From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent-
I hear thy groans upon her blood-stain'd streams!
Heroes, that for your peaceful country perish'd,
And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows
With bleeding wounds; forgive me, that I che-
rish'd

* Irresistibly.-1802. + Rebuked.-16.

Persuade.-lb.