Hush, beating heart of Christabel !
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!

She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-vein'd feet unsandal'd were;
And wildly glitter'd here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly!

"Mary mother, save me now!" Said Christabel, "and who art thou?"

The lady strange made answer meet,
And her voice was faint and sweet:-
"Have pity on my sore distress,
I scarce can speak for weariness:
Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!"
Said Christabel, "How camest thou here?"
And the lady, whose voice was faint and
sweet

Did thus pursue her answer meet:-
"My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:

Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:

They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.

They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white:
And once we cross'd the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
I have no thought what men they be;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced, I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey's back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.

Some mutter'd words his comrades spoke:
He placed me underneath this oak;
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell-
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.

Stretch forth thy hand," thus ended she,
"And help a wretched maid to flee."

Then Christabel stretch'd forth her hand, And comforted fair Geraldine:

"O well, bright dame, may you command The service of Sir Leoline;

And gladly our stout chivalry

Will he send forth, and friends withal,
To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father's hall."

She rose and forth with steps they pass'd
That strove to be, and were not, fast.
Her gracious stars the lady blest,
And thus spake on sweet Christabel:
"All our household are at rest,
The hall as silent as the cell;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awaken'd be,
But we will move as if in stealth;
And I beseech your courtesy,

This night, to share your couch with me."

They cross'd the moat, and Christabel
Took the key that fitted well;

A little door she open'd straight,
All in the middle of the gate;

The gate that was iron'd within and without,

Where an army in battle array had march'd out.

The lady sank, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose again,

And moved, as she were not in pain.

So, free from danger, free from fear,

They cross'd the court: right glad they

were.

And Christabel devoutly cried

To the lady by her side:

"Praise we the Virgin all divine,

Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!" "Alas, alas!" said Geraldine,

"I cannot speak for weariness."

So, free from danger, free from fear,

They cross'd the court: right glad they were.

Outside her kennel the mastiff old
Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,
Yet she an angry moan did make.
And what can ail the mastiff bitch?
Never till now she utter'd yell
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch:
For what can ail the mastiff bitch?

They pass'd the hall, that echoes still, Pass as lightly as you will.

The brands were flat, the brands were dying,

Amid their own white ashes lying;
But when the lady pass'd, there came
A tongue of light, a fit of flame;
And Christabel saw the lady's eye,
And nothing else saw she thereby,

Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,

Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.

"O softly tread," said Christabel,
"My father seldom sleepeth well."
Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,
And, jealous of the listening air,
They steal their way from stair to stair,
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,
And now they pass the Baron's room,
As still as death, with stifled breath!
And now have reach'd her chamber door;
And now doth Geraldine press down
The rushes of the chamber floor.

The moon shines dim in the open air,
And not a moonbeam enters here.
But they without its light can see
The chamber carved so curiously,
Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet:
The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is fasten'd to an angel's feet.
The silver lamp burns dead and dim;
But Christabel the lamp will trim.

She trimm'd the lamp, and made it bright,
And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.

"O weary lady, Geraldine,

I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers."

"And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?"
Christabel answer'd-"Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the gray-hair'd friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle-bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!"
"I would," said Geraldine, "she were!"
But soon, with alter'd voice, said she-
"Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!

I have power to bid thee flee."
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
And why with hollow voice cries she,
"Off, woman, off! this hour is mine-
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman, off! 'tis given to me."

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue-
"Alas!" said she, "this ghastly ride-
Dear lady! it hath wilder'd you!"
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, ""Tis over now!"

Again the wild-flower wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,
And from the floor, whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright:
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countree.

And thus the lofty lady spake-
"All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake,
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself; for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie."

Quoth Christabel, "So let it be!"
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.

But through her brain, of weal and woe,
So many thoughts moved to and fro,
That vain it were her lids to close;
So half-way from the bed she rose,
And on her elbow did recline,
To look at the lady Geraldine.

Beneath the lamp the lady bow'd,
And slowly roll'd her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shudder'd, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropt to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her bosom and half her side-
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs: Ah! what a stricken look was hers!

Deep from within she seems half-way
To lift some weight with sick assay,
And eyes the maid and seeks delay;
Then suddenly, as one defied,
Collects herself in scorn and pride,
And lay down by the maiden's side!--
And in her arms the maid she took,
Ah wel-a-day!

And with low voice and doleful look
These words did say:

"In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,

Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel! Thou knowest tonight, and wilt know tomorrow,

This mark of my shame, this seal of my

sorrow;

But faintly thou warrest,

For this is alone in Thy rower to declare,

That in the dim forest

Thou heard'st a low moaning,

And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly

fair:

And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity,

To shield her and shelter her from the damp air."

DEJECTION: AN ODE

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

[1802] 1

Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made

The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, This night, so tranquil now, will not go

hence

Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mold yon cloud in lazy flakes,

Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes

Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,
Which better far were mute;

For lo! the new-moon winter bright!
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o'er-
spread

But rimmed and circled by a silver thread) I see the old moon in her lap, foretelling

The coming-on of rain and squally blast. And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!

Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,

And sent my soul abroad,

Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,

Might startle this dull pain, and make it live!

2

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear

O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed, All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green, And still I gaze-and with how blank an eye!

And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,

That give away their motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them or between,

Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always

seen:

Yon crescent moon, as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair,

I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

3

My genial spirits fail;

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?

It were a vain endeavor,

Though I should gaze for ever

On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to

win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

4

O Lady, we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her
shroud!

And would we aught behold, of higher worth,

Than that inanimate cold world allowed

To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,

Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth

And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,

Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

5

O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be! What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,

This beautiful and beauty-making power. Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,

Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,

Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,
A new earth and new heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous
cloud-

We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,

All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light.

6

There was a time when, though my path was rough,

This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happi

ness:

For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,

And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;
But oh! each visitation

Suspends what Nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.
For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can;
And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural

man

This was my sole resource, my only plan:

ers,

Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,

Makest Devils' Yule, with worse than wintry song,

The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.

Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about?

'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!

But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans and tremulous shudderings— all is over

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!

A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight,

As Otway's self had framed the tender lay;

'Tis of a little child Upon a lonesome wild,

Not far from home, but she hath lost her way:

And now moans low in bitter grief and

fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,

Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.

II

TITAN! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine-and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee,
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled

That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

III.

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,

In the endurance, and repulse

Of thine impenetrable Spirit,

Which Earth and Heaven could not con

vulse,

A mighty lesson we inherit:

Thou art a symbol and a sign

To mortals of their fate and force;

Like thee, Man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;

His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself an equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.

SONNET ON CHILLON

LORD BYRON

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heartThe heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd

To fetters, and the damp vault's daless gloom,