Biographia Epistolaris Part 15

LETTER 52. TO COTTLE

Stowey, Friday Morning (1797).

My dear Cottle.

* * * If you do not like the following verses, or if you do not think them worthy of an edition in which I profess to give nothing but my choicest fish, picked, gutted, and cleaned, please to get some one to write them out and send them, with my compliments to the editor of the "New Monthly Magazine". But if you think as well of them as I do (most probably from parental dotage for my last born) let them immediately follow "The Kiss".

G.o.d love you,

S. T. C.

TO AN UNFORTUNATE YOUNG WOMAN.

WHOM I HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE.

Maiden! that with sullen brow, Sitt'st behind those virgins gay; Like a scorched, and mildew'd bough, Leafless mid the blooms of May.

Inly gnawing, thy distresses Mock those starts of wanton glee; And thy inmost soul confesses Chaste Affection's majesty.

Loathing thy polluted lot, Hie thee, Maiden! hie thee hence!

Seek thy weeping mother's cot, With a wiser innocence!

Mute the Lavrac [1] and forlorn While she moults those firstling plumes That had skimm'd the tender corn, Or the bean-field's od'rous blooms;

Soon with renovating wing, Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upwards to the day-star sing, And embathe in heavenly light.

ALLEGORICAL LINES ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

Myrtle Leaf, that, ill besped, Pinest in the gladsome ray, Soiled beneath the common tread, Far from thy protecting spray;

When the scythes-man o'er his sheaf, Caroll'd in the yellow vale, Sad, I saw thee, heedless leaf, Love the dalliance of the gale.

Lightly didst thou, poor fond thing!

Heave and flutter to his sighs While the flatterer on his wing, Woo'd, and whisper'd thee to rise.

Gaily from thy mother stalk Wert thou danced and wafted high; Soon on this unsheltered walk, Flung to fade, and rot, and die!

[Footnote 1: The Skylark.]

Cottle subjected the two poems to severe criticism, and Coleridge replied:

LETTER 53. TO COTTLE

Wednesday morning, 10 o'clock.

(January, 1797.)

My dearest Cottle,

* * * "Ill besped" is indeed a sad blotch; but after having tried at least a hundred ways, before I sent the Poem to you, and often since, I find it incurable. This first Poem is but a so so composition. I wonder I could have been so blinded by the ardour of recent composition, as to see anything in it.

Your remarks are "perfectly just" on the "Allegorical lines", except that, in this district, corn is as often cut with a scythe, as with a hook. However, for ""Scythes-man"" read "Rustic". For ""poor fond thing"," read "foolish thing", and for ""flung to fade, and rot, and die"," read "flung to wither and to die".

Milton (the carrier) waits impatiently.

S. T. C. [1]

[Footnote 1: Letters LXXI-LXXII follow Letter 53.]

Only the second poem was included in the second edition. The next letter, which contains an unrealized prophecy regarding Southey, speaks of the joint partnership of the volume of 1797.

LETTER 54. TO COTTLE

Stowey,--(Feby. or Mch. 1797.)

My dear Cottle,

* * * Public affairs are in strange confusion. I am afraid that I shall prove, at least, as good a Prophet as Bard. Oh, doom'd to fall, my country! enslaved and vile! But may G.o.d make me a foreboder of evils never to come!

I have heard from Sheridan, desiring me to write a tragedy. I have no genius that way; Robert Southey has. I think highly of his "Joan of Arc", and cannot help prophesying that he will be known to posterity, as Shakspeare's great grandson. I think he will write a tragedy or tragedies.

Charles Lloyd has given me his Poems, which I give to you, on condition that you print them in this Volume, after Charles Lamb's Poems; the t.i.tle page, "Poems, by S. T. Coleridge. Second Edition: to which are added Poems, by C. Lamb, and C. Lloyd". C. Lamb's poems will occupy about forty pages; C. Lloyd's at least one hundred, although only his choice fish.

P.S. I like your "Lines on Savage".

G.o.d bless you,

S. T. COLERIDGE."

During his stay at Stowey, Coleridge remained a subscriber to Catcott's Library, Bristol; and the following letter to the librarian is worth preserving.