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 Eolian lute, Which better far were mute; For lo! the new-moon winter bright! And overspread with phantom light, (With swimming phantom light o'erspread

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 vellow 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

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:

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.

And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm?

The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot?

Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part

Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion? should I not contemn

All objects, if compared with these? and stem

A tide of suffering rather than forego Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm

Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below,

Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?

It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,

Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly

seen,

Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights

appear

Precipitously steep; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,

Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the
brakes

Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill,

But that is fancy, for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse

Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate

Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven,

That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,

But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;

And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:

All heaven and earth are still: from the high host

Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain

coast,

All is concenter'd in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,

But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and Defense.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth which through our being then
doth melt,

And purifies from self: it is a tone,
The soul and source of music, which makes
known

Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty;-'twould disarm

The specter Death, had he substantial power to harm.

Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take

A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak,

Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare

Columns and idol dwellings, Goth or Greek,

With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,

Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!

Thy sky is changed!—and such a change! O night,