Her eyes she fix'd on guilty Florio first,
On him the storm of angry grief must burst.
That storm he fled :-he wooes a kinder fair,
Whose fond affections no dear puppies share.
"Twere vain to tell how Julia pined away ;-
Unhappy fair, that in one luckless day
(From future almanacks the day be crost!)
At once her lover and her lap-dog lost!

1789.*

I YET remain

To mourn the hours of youth (yet mourn in vain)
That fled neglected: wisely thou hast trod
The better path-and that high meed which God
Assign'd to virtue, tow'ring from the dust,
Shall wait thy rising, Spirit pure and just!

O God! how sweet it were to think, that all
Who silent mourn around this gloomy ball
Might hear the voice of joy ;-but 'tis the will
Of man's great Author, that through good and ill
Calm he should hold his course, and so sustain
His varied lot of pleasure, toil, and pain!

1793.+

This copy of verses was written at Christ's Hospital, and transcribed, honoris causa, into the book kept by the head-master, Mr. Bowyer, for that purpose. They are printed by Mr. Trollope in p. 192 of his History of the Hospital, published in 1834.

Ed.

These lines were found in Mr. Coleridge's hand-writing in one of the Prayer Books in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge. Ed.

TO THE REV. W. J. HORT.*

HUSH! ye clamorous cares, be mute!
Again, dear harmonist! again
Through the hollow of thy flute

Breathe that passion-warbled strain;
Till memory back each form shall bring
The loveliest of her shadowy throng,
And hope, that soars on sky-lark wing,
Shall carol forth her gladdest song!

O skill'd with magic spell to roll

The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul!
Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again,
While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild;
And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain
In soft impassion'd voice, correctly wild.

In freedom's undivided dell,

Where toil and health with mellow'd love shall dwell

Far from folly, far from men,

In the rude romantic glen,

Up the cliff, and through the glade,
Wand'ring with the dear-loved maid,
I shall listen to the lay,

And ponder on thee far away;

Still as she bids those thrilling notes aspire
(Making my fond attuned heart her lyre),
Thy honour'd form, my friend! shall reappear,
And I will thank thee with a raptured tear!

1794.

* Mr. Hort was a Unitarian clergyman, and in 1794 second master in Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Estlin's school on St. Michael's Hill, Bristol. Ed.

TO CHARLES LAMB,

WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM.

THUS far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling;-yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers
I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand'ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I, too, a sister had, an only sister-*
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her;
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows;
(As a sick patient in a nurse's arms,)

And of the heart those hidden maladies-
That e'en from friendship's eye will shrink ashamed.
O! I have waked at midnight, and have wept
Because she was not !-Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year;
Such warm presages feel I of high hope!
For not uninterested the dear maid
I've view'd-her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love

This line and the six and a half which follow are printed, by mistake, as a fragment in the first volume of the Poetical Works, 1834, p. 35. Ed.

Aught to implore were impotence of mind !)*
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
Prepared, when He his healing ray vouchsafes,
Thanksgiving to pour forth with lifted heart,
And praise him gracious with a brother's joy!

"I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the lines,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind,—

1794.

it being written in Scripture, Ask, and it shall be given you! and my human reason being, moreover, convinced of the propriety of offering petitions as well as thanksgivings to Deity." S. T. C. 1797.

"I will add, at the risk of appearing to dwell too long on religious topics, that on this my first introduction to Coleridge, he reverted with strong compunction to a sentiment which he had expressed in earlier days upon prayer. In one of his youthful poems, speaking of God, he had said,

Of whose all-seeing eye

Aught to demand were impotence of mind."

This sentiment he now so utterly condemned, that, on the contrary, he told me, as his own peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was the highest energy of which the human heart was capable-praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties; and the great mass of worldly men and of learned men he pronounced absolutely incapable of praying." Mr. De Quincey in Tait's Magazine, September, 1834, p. 515. "Mr. Coleridge, within two years of his death, very solemnly declared to me his conviction upon the same subject. I was sitting by his bed-side one afternoon, and he fell-an unusual thing for him-into a long account of many passages of his past life, lamenting some things, condemning others, but complaining withal, though very gently, of the way in which many of his most innocent acts had been cruelly misrepresented. But I have no difficulty,' said he, 'in forgiveness; indeed, I know not how to say with sincerity the clause in the Lord's Prayer, which asks forgiveness as we forgive. I feel nothing answering to it in my heart. Neither do I find, or reckon, the most solemn faith in God as a real object, the most arduous act of the reason and will ;-O no! my dear, it is to pray, to pray as God would have us; this is what at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe me, to pray with all your heart and strength, with the reason and the will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing he pleaseth thereupon-this is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christian's warfare on earth. Teach us to pray, O Lord!' And then he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me to pray for him. O what a sight was there!" Table Talk, vol. i. p. 162, n. Ed.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

SISTER of lovelorn poets, Philomel!
How many bards in city garret spent,
While at their window they with downward eye
Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud,
And listen to the drowsy cry of watchmen,
(Those hoarse, unfeather'd nightingales of time!)
How many wretched bards address thy name,
And hers, the full-orb'd queen, that shines above.
But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark,
Within whose mild moon-mellow'd foliage hid,
Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains.
O I have listen'd, till my working soul,
Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies,
Absorb'd, hath ceas'd to listen! Therefore oft
I hymn thy name; and with a proud delight
Oft will I tell thee, minstrel of the moon,
Most musical, most melancholy bird!
That all thy soft diversities of tone,
Though sweeter far than the delicious airs
That vibrate from a white-arm'd lady's harp,
What time the languishment of lonely love
Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow,
Are not so sweet, as is the voice of her,

My Sara-best beloved of human kind!
When breathing the pure soul of tenderness,
She thrills me with the husband's promised name!

1794.