The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 79

PARLIAMENTARY OSCILLATORS[211:1]

Almost awake? Why, what is this, and whence, O ye right loyal men, all undefiled?

Sure, 'tis not possible that Common-Sense Has. .h.i.tch'd her pullies to each heavy eye-lid?

Yet wherefore else that start, which discomposes 5 The drowsy waters lingering in your eye?

And are you _really_ able to descry That precipice three yards beyond your noses?

Yet flatter you I cannot, that your wit Is much improved by this long loyal dozing; 10 And I admire, no more than Mr. Pitt, Your jumps and starts of patriotic prosing--

Now cluttering to the Treasury Cluck, like chicken, Now with small beaks the ravenous _Bill_ opposing;[212:1]

With serpent-tongue now stinging, and now licking, 15 Now semi-sibilant, now smoothly glozing--

Now having faith implicit that he can't err, Hoping his hopes, alarm'd with his alarms; And now believing him a sly inchanter, Yet still afraid to break his brittle charms, 20

Lest some mad Devil suddenly unhamp'ring, Slap-dash! the imp should fly off with the steeple, On revolutionary broom-stick scampering.-- O ye soft-headed and soft-hearted people,

If you can stay so long from slumber free, 25 My muse shall make an effort to salute 'e: For lo! a very dainty simile Flash'd sudden through my brain, and 'twill just suit 'e!

You know that water-fowl that cries, Quack! Quack!?

Full often have I seen a waggish crew 30 Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on its back, The ivy-haunting bird, that cries, Tu-whoo!

Both plung'd together in the deep mill-stream, (Mill-stream, or farm-yard pond, or mountain-lake,) Shrill, as a _Church and Const.i.tution_ scream, 35 Tu-whoo! quoth Broad-face, and down dives the Drake!

The green-neck'd Drake once more pops up to view, Stares round, cries Quack! and makes an angry pother; Then shriller screams the Bird with eye-lids blue, The broad-faced Bird! and deeper dives the other. 40 Ye _quacking_ Statesmen! 'tis even so with you-- One Peasecod is not liker to another.

Even so on Loyalty's Decoy-pond, each Pops up his head, as fir'd with British blood, Hears once again the Ministerial screech, 45 And once more seeks the bottom's blackest mud!

1798.

(_Signed:_ LABERIUS.)

FOOTNOTES:

[211:1] First published in the _Cambridge Intelligencer_, January 6, 1798: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817: _Essays on His own Times_, 1850, iii. 969-70. First collected in _P. and D. W._, 1877-80. In _Sibylline Leaves_ the poem is incorrectly dated 1794.

[212:1] Pitt's 'treble a.s.sessment at seven millions' which formed part of the budget for 1798. The grant was carried in the House of Commons, Jan. 4, 1798.

LINENOTES:

t.i.tle] To Sir John Sinclair, S. Thornton, Alderman Lushington, and the whole Troop of Parliamentary Oscillators C. I.

[2] right] tight C. I.

[3] It's hardly possible C. I.

[9] But yet I cannot flatter you, your wit C. I.

[14] the] his C. I.

[24] O ye soft-hearted and soft-headed, &c. C. I.

[26, 28] 'e] ye C. I.

[29] that cries] which cries C. I.

[30] Full often] Ditch-full oft C. I.

[31] Fasten] Fallen C. I.

CHRISTABEL[213:1]

PREFACE

The first part of the following poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick, c.u.mberland. It is probable that if the poem had been finished at either of the former periods, or 5 if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But for this I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of 10 plagiarism or servile imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably 15 derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets[215:1] whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular pa.s.sages, or in the tone and 20 the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggerel version of two monkish Latin hexameters.[215:2]

'Tis mine and it is likewise yours; 25 But an if this will not do; Let it be mine, good friend! for I Am the poorer of the two.

I have only to add that the metre of Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its 30 being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless, this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, 35 or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition in the nature of the imagery or pa.s.sion.

PART I

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing c.o.c.k; Tu--whit!----Tu--whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing c.o.c.k, How drowsily it crew. 5 Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff b.i.t.c.h; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; 10 Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?

The night is chilly, but not dark. 15 The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky.

The moon is behind, and at the full; And yet she looks both small and dull.

The night is chill, the cloud is gray: 20 'Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, 25 A furlong from the castle gate?

She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away. 30

She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low, And naught was green upon the oak But moss and rarest misletoe: She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, 35 And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel!

It moaned as near, as near can be, But what it is she cannot tell.-- 40 On the other side it seems to be, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?

There is not wind enough in the air 45 To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek-- There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, 50 Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.