I now devoted myself to poetry and to the study of ethics and psychology; and so profound was my admiration at this time of Hartley's Essay on Man, that I gave his name to my first-born. In addition to the gentleman, my neighbor, whose garden joined on to my little orchard, and the cultivation of whose friendship had been my sole motive in choosing Stowey for my residence, I was so fortunate as to acquire, shortly after my settlement there, an invaluable blessing in the society and neighborhood of one to whom I could look up with equal reverence, whether I regarded him as a poet, a philosopher, or a man. His conversation extended to almost all subjects, except physics and politics; with the latter he never troubled himself. Yet neither my retirement nor my utter abstraction from all the disputes of the day could secure me in those jealous times from suspicion and obloquy, which did not stop at me, but extended to my excellent friend, whose perfect innocence was even adduced as a proof of his guilt. One of the many busy sycophants of that day,-(I here use the word sycophant in its original sense, as a wretch who flatters the prevailing party by informing against his neighbors, under pretence that they are exporters of prohibited figs or fancies,-for the moral application of the term it matters not which)-one of these sycophantic lawmongrels, discoursing on the politics of the neighborhood, uttered the following deep remark: "As to Coleridge, there is not so much harm in him, for he is a whirl-brain that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that -! he is the dark traitor. You never hear HIM say a syllable on the subject." The dark guesses of some zealous Quidnunc met with so congenial a soil in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neighborhood, that a spy was actually sent down from the government pour surveillance of myself and friend. There must have been not only abundance, but variety of those "honorable men" at the disposal of Ministers; for this proved a very honest fellow. After three weeks' truly Indian perseverance in tracking us, (for we were commonly together,) during all which time seldom were we out of doors, but he contrived to be within hearing, and all the while utterly unsuspected; how indeed could such a suspicion enter our fancies?-he not only rejected Sir Dogberry's request that he would try yet a little longer, but declared to him his belief that both my friend and myself were as good subjects, for aught he could discover to the contrary, as any in His Majesty's dominions. He had repeatedly hid himself, he said, for hours together behind a bank at the seaside, (our favorite seat,) and overheard our conversation. At first he fancied, that we were aware of our danger; for he often heard me talk of one Spy Nozy, which he was inclined to interpret of himself, and of a remarkable feature belonging to him; but he was speedily convinced that it was the name of a man who had made a book and lived long ago. Our talk ran most upon books, and we were perpetually desiring each other to look at this, and to listen to that; but he could not catch a word about politics. Once he had joined me on the road; (this occurred as I was returning home alone from my friend's house, which was about three miles from my own cottage,) and, passing himself off as a traveler, he had entered into conversation with me, and talked of purpose in a democrat way in order to draw me out. The result, it appears, not only convinced him that I was no friend of Jacobinism; but, (he added,) I had "plainly made it out to be such a silly as well as wicked thing, that he felt ashamed though he had only put it on.” I distinctly remembered the occurrence, and had mentioned it immediately on my return, repeating what the traveler with his Bardolph nose had said, with my own answer; and so little did I suspect the true object of my "tempter ere accuser," that I expressed with no small pleasure my hope and belief that the conversation had been of some service to the poor misled malcontent. incident therefore prevented all doubt as to the truth of the report, which through a friendly medium came to me from the master of the village inn, who had been ordered to entertain the Government gentleman in his best manner, but above all to be silent concerning such a person being in his house. At length he received Sir Dogberry's commands to accompany his guest at the final interview; and, after the absolving suffrage of the gentleman honored with the confidence of Ministers, answered, as follows, to the following queries: D. Well, landlord! and what This do you know of the person in question? L. I see him often pass by with maister my landlord, (that is, the owner of the house,) and sometimes with the newcomers at Holford; but I never said a word to him or he to me. D. But do you not know, that he has distributed papers and handbills of a seditious nature among the common people? L. No, your Honor! I never heard of such a thing. D. Have you not seen this Mr. Coleridge, or heard of his haranguing and talking to knots and clusters of the inhabitants? -What are you grinning at, sir? L. Beg your Honor's pardon! but I was only thinking, how they'd have stared at him. If what I have heard be true, your Honor! they would not have understood a word he said. When our Vicar was here, Dr. L., the master of the great school and Canon of Windsor, there was a great dinner party at maister -'s; and one of the farmers, that was there, told us that he and the Doctor talked real Hebrew Greek at each other for an hour together after dinner. D. Answer the question, sir! does he ever harangue the people? L. I hope your Honor ain't angry with me. I can say no more than I know. I never saw him talking with anyone but my landlord, and our curate, and the strange gentleman. D. Has he not been seen wandering on the hills towards the Channel, and along the shore, with books and papers in his hand, taking charts and maps of the country? L. Why, as to that, your Honor! I own, I have heard; I am sure, I would not wish to say ill of anybody; but it is certain, that I have heard-D. Speak out, man! don't be afraid, you are doing your duty to your King and Government. What have you heard? L. Why, folks do say, your Honor! as how that he is a Poet, and that he is going to put Quantock and all about here in print; and as they be so much together, I suppose that the strange gentleman has some consarn in the business.-So ended this formidable inquisition, the latter part of which alone requires explanation, and at the same time entitles the anecdote to a place in my literary life. I had considered it as a defect in the admirable poem of The Task, that the subject which gives the title to the work was not, and indeed could not be, carried on beyond the three or four first pages, and that, throughout the poem, the connections are frequently awkward, and the transitions abrupt and arbitrary. I sought for a subject that should give equal room and free dom for description, incident, and impassioned reflections on men, nature, and society, yet supply in itself a natural connection to the parts, and unity to the whole. Such a subject I conceived myself to have found in a stream, traced from its source in the hills among the yellow-red moss and conical glass-shaped tufts of bent, to the first break or fall, where its drops become audible, and it begins to form a channel; thence to the peat and turf barn, itself built of the same dark squares as it sheltered; to the sheepfold; to the first cultivated plot of ground; to the lonely cottage and its bleak garden won from the heath; to the hamlet, the villages, the market-town, the manufactories, and the seaport. My walks therefore were almost daily on top of Quantock, and among its sloping coombes. With my pencil and memorandum-book in my hand, I was making studies, as the artists call them, and often molding my thoughts into verse, with the objects and imagery immediately before my senses. Many circumstances, evil and good, intervened to prevent the completion of the poem, which was to have been entitled The Brook. Had I finished the work, it was my purpose in the heat of the moment to have dedicated it to our then committee of public safety as containing the charts and maps, with which I was to have supplied the French Government in aid of their plans of invasion. And these too for a tract of coast that, from Clevedon to Minehead, scarcely permits the approach of a fishing-boat! During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbors, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination. The sudden charm which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its vicinity where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them when they present themselves. In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads; in which it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand. With this view I wrote the Ancient Mariner, and was preparing, among other poems, the Dark Ladie, and the Christabel, in which I should have more nearly realized my ideal than I had done in my first attempt. But Mr. Wordsworth's industry had proved so much more successful, and the number of his poems so much greater, that my compositions, instead of forming a balance, appeared rather an interpolation of heterogeneous matter. Mr. Wordsworth added two or three poems written in his own character, in the impassioned, lofty, and sustained diction which is characteristic of his genius. CHRISTABEL: PART THE FIRST [From Christabel, 1797] 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock; Tu-whit-Tu-whoo! Hush, beating heart of Christabel! She folded her arms beneath her cloak, There she sees a damsel bright, "Mary mother, save me now!" Said Christabel, "and who art thou?" The lady strange made answer meet, Did thus pursue her answer meet:- And my name is Geraldine: Five warriors seized me yestermorn, They choked my cries with force and fright, They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white: (For I have lain entranced, I wis) Some mutter'd words his comrades spoke: Stretch forth thy hand," thus ended she, Then Christabel stretch'd forth her hand, And comforted fair Geraldine: "O well, bright dame, may you command And gladly our stout chivalry She rose and forth with steps they pass'd This night, to share your couch with me." They cross'd the moat, and Christabel A little door she open'd straight, 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, Over the threshold of the gate: 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; 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, The moon shines dim in the open air, She trimm'd the lamp, and made it bright, "O weary lady, Geraldine, I pray you, drink this cordial wine! "And will your mother pity me, I have power to bid thee flee." Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side, Again the wild-flower wine she drank: And thus the lofty lady spake- Quoth Christabel, "So let it be!" But through her brain, of weal and woe, Beneath the lamp the lady bow'd, Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs: Ah! what a stricken look was hers! |