The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 21

1792.

LINES[51:1]

ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING

O thou wild Fancy, check thy wing! No more Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore!

Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight Bath'd in rich amber-glowing floods of light; Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day, 5 With western peasants hail the morning ray!

Ah! rather bid the perish'd pleasures move, A shadowy train, across the soul of Love!

O'er Disappointment's wintry desert fling Each flower that wreath'd the dewy locks of Spring, 10 When blushing, like a bride, from Hope's trim bower She leapt, awaken'd by the pattering shower.

Now sheds the sinking Sun a deeper gleam, Aid, lovely Sorceress! aid thy Poet's dream!

With faery wand O bid the Maid arise, 15 Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes; As erst when from the Muses' calm abode I came, with Learning's meed not unbestowed; When as she twin'd a laurel round my brow, And met my kiss, and half return'd my vow, 20 O'er all my frame shot rapid my thrill'd heart, And every nerve confess'd the electric dart.

O dear Deceit! I see the Maiden rise, Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes!

When first the lark high-soaring swells his throat, 25 Mocks the tir'd eye, and scatters the loud note, I trace her footsteps on the accustom'd lawn, I mark her glancing mid the gleam of dawn.

When the bent flower beneath the night-dew weeps And on the lake the silver l.u.s.tre sleeps, 30 Amid the paly radiance soft and sad, She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad.

With her along the streamlet's brink I rove; With her I list the warblings of the grove; And seems in each low wind her voice to float 35 Lone-whispering Pity in each soothing note!

Spirits of Love! ye heard her name! Obey The powerful spell, and to my haunt repair.

Whether on cl.u.s.t'ring pinions ye are there, Where rich snows blossom on the Myrtle-trees, 40 Or with fond languishment around my fair Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair; O heed the spell, and hither wing your way, Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze!

Spirits! to you the infant Maid was given 45 Form'd by the wond'rous Alchemy of Heaven!

No fairer Maid does Love's wide empire know, No fairer Maid e'er heav'd the bosom's snow.

A thousand Loves around her forehead fly; A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye; 50 Love lights her smile--in Joy's red nectar dips His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips.

She speaks! and hark that pa.s.sion-warbled song-- Still, Fancy! still that voice, those notes prolong.

As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls 55 Shall wake the soften'd echoes of Heaven's Halls!

[52:1]O (have I sigh'd) were mine the wizard's rod, Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful G.o.d!

A flower-entangled Arbour I would seem To shield my Love from Noontide's sultry beam: 60 Or bloom a Myrtle, from whose od'rous boughs My Love might weave gay garlands for her brows.

When Twilight stole across the fading vale, To fan my Love I'd be the Evening Gale; Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest, 65 And flutter my faint pinions on her breast!

On Seraph wing I'd float a Dream by night, To soothe my Love with shadows of delight:-- Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies, And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes! 70

As when the Savage, who his drowsy frame Had bask'd beneath the Sun's unclouded flame, Awakes amid the troubles of the air, The skiey deluge, and white lightning's glare-- Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep, 75 And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep:-- So tossed by storms along Life's wild'ring way, Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day, When by my native brook I wont to rove, While Hope with kisses nurs'd the Infant Love. 80

Dear native brook! like Peace, so placidly Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meek!

Dear native brook! where first young Poesy Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream!

Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek, 85 As water-lilies ripple thy slow stream!

Dear native haunts! where Virtue still is gay, Where Friendship's fix'd star sheds a mellow'd ray, Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears, Where soften'd Sorrow smiles within her tears; 90 And Memory, with a Vestal's chaste employ, Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of joy!

No more your sky-larks melting from the sight Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with delight-- No more shall deck your pensive Pleasures sweet 95 With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat.

Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied scene Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between!

Yet sweet to Fancy's ear the warbled song, That soars on Morning's wing your vales among. 100

Scenes of my Hope! the aching eye ye leave Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve!

Tearful and saddening with the sadden'd blaze Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze: Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend, 105 Till chill and damp the moonless night descend

1793.

FOOTNOTES:

[51:1] First published in 1796: included in 1797, 1803, 1828, 1829 and 1834. In _Social Life at the English Universities_, by Christopher Wordsworth, M.A., 1874, it is recorded that this poem was read by Coleridge to a party of college friends on November 7, 1793.

[52:1] Note to line 57. Poems, 1796, pp. 183-5:--I entreat the Public's pardon for having carelessly suffered to be printed such intolerable stuff as this and the thirteen following lines. They have not the merit even of originality: as every thought is to be found in the Greek Epigrams. The lines in this poem from the 27th to the 36th, I have been told are a palpable imitation of the pa.s.sage from the 355th to the 370th line of the Pleasures of Memory Part 3. I do not perceive so striking a similarity between the two pa.s.sages; at all events I had written the Effusion several years before I had seen M{r} Rogers' Poem.--It may be proper to remark that the tale of Florio in the 'Pleasures of Memory' is to be found in Lochleven, a poem of great merit by Michael Bruce.--In M{r} Rogers' Poem[52:A] the names are Florio and Julia; in the Lochleven Lomond and Levina--and this is all the difference. We seize the opportunity of transcribing from the Lochleven of Bruce the following exquisite pa.s.sage, expressing the effects of a fine day on the human heart.

Fat on the plain, and mountain's sunny side Large droves of oxen and the fleecy flocks Feed undisturb'd; and fill the echoing air With Music grateful to their [the] Master's ear.

The Traveller stops and gazes round and round O'er all the plains [scenes] that animate his heart With mirth and music. Even the mendicant Bow-bent with age, that on the old gray stone Sole-sitting suns him in the public way, Feels his heart leap, and to himself he sings.

[_Poems_ by Michael Bruce, 1796, p. 94.]

[52:A] For Coleridge's retractation of the charge of plagiarism and apology to Rogers see 'Advertis.e.m.e.nt to Supplement of 1797', pp. 244, 245.

LINENOTES:

t.i.tle] Effusion x.x.xvi. Written in Early Youth, The Time, An Autumnal Evening 1796: Written in etc. 1803: An Effusion on an Autumnal Evening.

Written in Early Youth 1797 (Supplement).

A first draft, headed 'An Effusion at Evening, Written in August, 1792'

is included in the MS. volume presented to Mrs. Estlin in April, 1795 (_vide ante_, pp. 49, 50).

[28] gleam] gleams 1796, 1797, 1803, 1893.

[51-3]

in Joy's bright nectar dips The flamy rose, and plants it on her lips!

Tender, serene, and all devoid of guile, Soft is her soul, as sleeping infants' smile.

She speaks, &c.

1796, 1803.

[54] still those mazy notes 1796, 1803.

[55-6]

Sweet as th' angelic harps, whose rapturous falls Awake the soften'd echoes of Heaven's Halls.

1796, 1803.

[86] thy] a 1796, 1803.

TO FORTUNE[54:1]