The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 114

Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca, Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness.

Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol;-- Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid--the people with mad shouts 10 Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd, Rushes dividuous all--all rushing impetuous onward.

? 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[329:1] First published in 1834. In an unpublished letter to Southey, dated Sept. 25, 1799, Coleridge writes, 'I shall go on with the Mohammed'. There can be no doubt that these fourteen lines, which represent Coleridge's contribution to a poem on 'Mahomet' which he had planned in conjunction with Southey, were at that time already in existence. For Southey's portion, which numbered 109 lines, see _Oliver Newman_. By Robert Southey, 1845, pp. 113-15.

LOVE[330:1]

All thoughts, all pa.s.sions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I 5 Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay, Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve; 10 And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listened to my lay, 15 Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!

She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve. 20

I played a soft and doleful air, I sang an old and moving story-- An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and h.o.a.ry.

She listened with a flitting blush, 25 With downcast eyes and modest grace; For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; 30 And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!

The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, 35 Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace; And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face! 40

But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den, 45 And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade,--

There came and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright; 50 And that he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did, He leaped amid a murderous band, And saved from outrage worse than death 55 The Lady of the Land!

And how she wept, and clasped his knees; And how she tended him in vain-- And ever strove to expiate The scorn that crazed his brain;-- 60

And that she nursed him in a cave; And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay;--

His dying words--but when I reached 65 That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faultering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve; 70 The music and the doleful tale, The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng, And gentle wishes long subdued, 75 Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight, She blushed with love, and virgin-shame; And like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name. 80

Her bosom heaved--she stepped aside, As conscious of my look she stepped-- Then suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms, 85 She pressed me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, 90 That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve, 95 My bright and beauteous Bride.

1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[330:1] First published (with four preliminary and three concluding stanzas) as the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_, in the _Morning Post_, Dec. 21, 1799 (for complete text with introductory letter vide Appendices): included (as _Love_) in the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1800, 1802, 1805: reprinted with the text of the _Morning Post_ in _English Minstrelsy_, 1810 (ii. 131-9) with the following prefatory note:--'These exquisite stanzas appeared some years ago in a London Newspaper, and have since that time been republished in Mr. Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, but with some alterations; the Poet having apparently relinquished his intention of writing the Fate of the Dark Ladye': included (as _Love_) in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1828, 1829, and 1834. The four opening and three concluding stanzas with prefatory note were republished in _Literary Remains_, 1836, pp. 50-2, and were first collected in 1844. For a facsimile of the MS. of _Love_ as printed in the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800 (i. 138-44), see _Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS._, edited by W. Hale White, 1897 (between pp. 34-5). For a collation of the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_ with two MSS. in the British Museum [Add. MSS., No. 27,902] see _Coleridge's Poems_. A Facsimile Reproduction, &c. Ed. by James d.y.k.es Campbell, 1899, and Appendices of this edition.

It is probable that the greater part of the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_ was written either during or shortly after a visit which Coleridge paid to the Wordsworths's friends, George and Mary, and Sarah Hutchinson, at Sockburn, a farm-house on the banks of the Tees, in November, 1799. In the first draft, ll. 13-16, 'She leaned, &c.' runs thus:--

She lean'd against a grey stone rudely carv'd, The statue of an armed Knight: She lean'd in melancholy mood Amid the lingering light.

In the church at Sockburn there is a rec.u.mbent statue of an 'armed knight' (of the Conyers family), and in a field near the farm-house there is a 'Grey-Stone' which is said to commemorate the slaying of a monstrous wyverne or 'worme' by the knight who is buried in the church.

It is difficult to believe that the 'armed knight' and the 'grey stone'

of the first draft were not suggested by the statue in Sockburn Church, and the 'Grey-Stone' in the adjoining field. It has been argued that the _Ballad of the Dark Ladie_, of which only a fragment remains, was written after Coleridge returned from Germany, and that the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_, which embodies _Love_, was written at Stowey in 1797 or 1798. But in referring to 'the plan' of the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798 (_Biog. Lit._, 1817, Cap. XIV, ii. 3) Coleridge says that he had written the _Ancient Mariner_, and was preparing the _Dark Ladie_ and the _Christabel_ (both unpublished poems when this Chapter was written), but says nothing of so typical a poem as _Love_. By the _Dark Ladie_ he must have meant the unfinished _Ballad of the Dark Ladie_, which, at one time, numbered 190 lines, not the _Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_, which later on he refers to as the 'poem ent.i.tled Love' (_Biog. Lit._, 1817, Cap. XXIV, ii. 298), and which had appeared under that t.i.tle in the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1800, 1802, and 1805.

In _Sibylline Leaves_, 1828, 1829, and 1834, _Love_, which was the first in order of a group of poems with the sub-t.i.tle 'Love Poems', was prefaced by the following motto:--

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in aevo, Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.

Omnia paulatim consumit longior aetas, Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.

Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor: Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago, Voxque aliud sonat-- Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes, Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus Mens horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum.

PETRARCH.

LINENOTES:

t.i.tle] Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie M. P.: Fragment, S. T.

Coleridge English Minstrelsy, 1810.

Opening stanzas

O leave the Lilly on its stem; O leave the Rose upon the spray; O leave the Elder-bloom, fair Maids!

And listen to my lay.

A Cypress and a Myrtle bough, This morn around my harp you twin'd, Because it fashion'd mournfully Its murmurs in the wind.