The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 129

TO MATILDA BETHAM FROM A STRANGER[374:1]

['One of our most celebrated poets, who had, I was told, picked out and praised the little piece 'On a Cloud,' another had quoted (saying it would have been faultless if I had not used the word _Phoebus_ in it, which he thought inadmissible in modern poetry), sent me some verses inscribed "To Matilda Betham, from a Stranger"; and dated "Keswick, Sept. 9, 1802, S. T. C." I should have guessed whence they came, but dared not flatter myself so highly as satisfactorily to believe it, before I obtained the avowal of the lady who had transmitted them.

_Excerpt from 'Autobiographical Sketch'._]

Matilda! I have heard a sweet tune played On a sweet instrument--thy Poesie-- Sent to my soul by Boughton's pleading voice, Where friendship's zealous wish inspirited, Deepened and filled the subtle tones of _taste_: 5 (So have I heard a Nightingale's fine notes Blend with the murmur of a hidden stream!) And now the fair, wild offspring of thy genius, Those wanderers whom thy fancy had sent forth To seek their fortune in this motley world, 10 Have found a little home within _my_ heart, And brought me, as the quit-rent of their lodging, Rose-buds, and fruit-blossoms, and pretty weeds, And timorous laurel leaflets half-disclosed, Engarlanded with gadding woodbine tendrils! 15 A coronal, which, with undoubting hand, I twine around the brows of patriot HOPE!

The Almighty, having first composed a Man, Set him to music, framing Woman for him, And fitted each to each, and made them one! 20 And 'tis my faith, that there's a natural bond Between the female mind and measured sounds, Nor do I know a sweeter Hope than this, That this sweet Hope, by judgment unreproved, That our own Britain, our dear mother Isle, 25 May boast one Maid, a poetess _indeed_, Great as th' impa.s.sioned Lesbian, in sweet song, And O! of holier mind, and happier fate.

Matilda! I dare twine _thy_ vernal wreath Around the brows of patriot Hope! But thou 30 Be wise! be bold! fulfil my auspices!

Tho' sweet thy measures, stern must be thy thought, Patient thy study, watchful thy mild eye!

Poetic feelings, like the stretching boughs Of mighty oaks, pay homage to the gales, 35 Toss in the strong winds, drive before the gust, Themselves one giddy storm of fluttering leaves; Yet, all the while self-limited, remain Equally near the fixed and solid trunk Of Truth and Nature in the howling storm, 40 As in the calm that stills the aspen grove.

Be bold, meek Woman! but be wisely bold!

Fly, ostrich-like, firm land beneath thy feet, Yet hurried onward by thy wings of fancy Swift as the whirlwind, singing in their quills. 45 Look round thee! look within thee! think and feel!

What n.o.bler meed, Matilda! canst thou win, Than tears of gladness in a BOUGHTON'S[376:1] eyes, And exultation even in strangers' hearts?

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[374:1] First printed in a 'privately printed autobiographical sketch of Miss Matilda Betham', preserved in a volume of tracts arranged and bound up by Southey, now in the Forster Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum: reprinted (by J. d.y.k.es Campbell) in the _Athenaeum_ (March 15, 1890): and, again, in _A House of Letters_, by Ernest Betham [1905], pp.

76-7. First collected in 1893 (see Editor's _Note_, p. 630). Lines 33-41 are quoted in a Letter to Sotheby, September 10, 1802. See _Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 404.

[376:1] Catherine Rose, wife of Sir Charles William Rouse-Boughton, Bart. Sir Charles and Lady Boughton visited Greta Hall in September, 1802.

LINENOTES:

[7] murmur] murmurs 1893.

[16] coronal] coronel P. Sketch.

[34] stretching] flexuous MS. Letter, Sept. 10, 1802.

[35] pay] yield MS. Letter, 1802.

[39] solid] parent MS. Letter, 1802.

[40] Of truth in Nature--in the howling blast MS. Letter, 1802.

HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI[376:2]

Besides the Rivers, Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its 'flowers of loveliest [liveliest _Friend, 1809_]

blue.'

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC, The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! 5 Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon ma.s.s: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, 10 It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer 15 I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought, Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy: 20 Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision pa.s.sing--there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only pa.s.sive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, 25 Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale!

O struggling with the darkness all the night,[378:1] 30 And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink: Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise! 35 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?

Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?

Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!

Who called you forth from night and utter death, 40 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever?

Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, 45 Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain-- 50 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun 55 Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers[379:1]

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-- G.o.d! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, G.o.d!

G.o.d! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! 60 Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, G.o.d!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!

Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! 65 Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm!

Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!

Ye signs and wonders of the element!

Utter forth G.o.d, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too, h.o.a.r Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche,[380:1] unheard, 71 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-- Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 75 In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, To rise before me--Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth! 80 Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread amba.s.sador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun Earth, with her thousand voices, praises G.o.d. 85

1802.

FOOTNOTES:

[376:2] First published in the _Morning Post_, Sept. 11, 1802: reprinted in the _Poetical Register_ for 1802 (1803), ii. 308, 311, and in _The Friend_, No. XI, Oct. 26, 1809: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. Three MSS. are extant: (1) _MS. A_, sent to Sir George Beaumont, Oct. 1803 (see _Coleorton Letters_, 1886, i. 26); (2) _MS. B_, the MS. of the version as printed in _The Friend_, Oct. 26, 1809 (now in the Forster Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum); (3) _MS. C_, presented to Mrs. Brabant in 1815 (now in the British Museum). The _Hymn before Sunrise, &c._, 'Hymn in the manner of the Psalms,' is an expansion, in part, of a translation of Friederika Brun's 'Ode to Chamouny', addressed to Klopstock, which numbers some twenty lines. The German original (see the Appendices of this edition) was first appended to Coleridge's _Poetical Works_ in 1844 (p. 372). A translation was given in a footnote, _P. W._ (ed. by T. Ashe), 1885, ii.

86, 87. In the _Morning Post_ and _Poetical Register_ the following explanatory note preceded the poem:--

'CHAMOUNI, THE HOUR BEFORE SUNRISE.

'[Chamouni is one of the highest mountain valleys of the Barony of Faucigny in the Savoy Alps; and exhibits a kind of fairy world, in which the wildest appearances (I had almost said horrors) of Nature alternate with the softest and most beautiful. The chain of Mont Blanc is its boundary; and besides the Arve it is filled with sounds from the Arveiron, which rushes from the melted glaciers, like a giant, mad with joy, from a dungeon, and forms other torrents of snow-water, having their rise in the glaciers which slope down into the valley. The beautiful _Gentiana major_, or greater gentian, with blossoms of the brightest blue, grows in large companies a few steps from the never-melted ice of the glaciers. I thought it an affecting emblem of the boldness of human hope, venturing near, and, as it were, leaning over the brink of the grave. Indeed, the whole vale, its every light, its every sound, must needs impress every mind not utterly callous with the thought--Who _would_ be, who _could_ be an Atheist in this valley of wonders! If any of the readers of the MORNING POST [Those who have _P. R._] have visited this vale in their journeys among the Alps, I am confident that they [that they _om. P. R._] will not find the sentiments and feelings expressed, or attempted to be expressed, in the following poem, extravagant.]'

[378:1] I had written a much finer line when Sca' Fell was in my thoughts, viz.:--

O blacker than the darkness all the night And visited _Note to MS. A._