Heard after years of absence, from the vale Where Cherwell winds." Most true it speaks the tale Of days departed, and its voice recalls Hours of delight and hope in the gay tide Denied the joys sought in thy shades,-denied Didst soothe me, bidding my poor heart rejoice, Though smitten sore: O, I did little think That thou, my friend, wouldst the first victim fall To the stern king of terrors! thou didst fly, By pity prompted, at the poor man's cry; And soon thyself wert stretch'd beneath the pall, Livid infection's prey. The deep distress Of her, who best thy inmost bosom knew, To whom thy faith was vow'd, thy soul was true, What powers of faltering language shall express As friendship bids, I feebly breathe my own, And sorrowing say, "Pure spirit, thou art gone!" SONNET. ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. WILLIAM BENWELL. THOU camest with kind looks, when on the brink Almost of death I strove, and with mild voice The following elegant inscription to the memory of this amiable and excellent young man is prefixed to the chancel of Caversham church, near Reading, and does merely justice to the many valuable qualifications of him whose virtues and graces it records : Near this Chancel are deposited The Remains of the REV. WILLIAM BENWELL, He was remarkable for correctness of taste, In manners and conversation he possessed a natural grace; a winning courtesy, truly expressive of the heavenly serenity of his mind, and of the meekness, low liness and benevolence of his heart. To his Relations, and to his Companions whom he loved, he was most tenderly and consistently affectionate: To the poor a zealous friend, a wise and patient instructer; By his mildness cheering the sorrowful; And, by the pure and amiable sanctity which beamed in his countenance, repressing the licentious. Habitually pious, He appeared in every instance of life as in the sight of GOD. He died Sept. 6th, 96, in his 32d year: His soul pleased the LORD, therefore hasted He to take him away. This Tablet was erected to his Memory, with heartfelt grief, and the tenderest affection, By PENELOPE, eldest daughter of JOHN LOVEDAY, Esq.; and PENELOPE his wife, Who, after many years of the most ardent friendship, became his wife and his widow in the course of eleven weeks!" SONNET. WRITTEN AT MALVERN, JULY 11, 1793. I SHALL behold far off thy towering crest, SONNET. ON REVIEWING THE FOREGOING. SEPT. 21, 1797. I TURN these leaves with thronging thoughts, and say, "Alas! how many friends of youth are dead, Beneath the pleasant morning's purple wing SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. maps with which he was reported to have supplied the French government, in aid of their plans of invasion. A perusal of Bowles's Sonnets appears to have first inspired him with a taste for poetry, of which his earliest specimen was given to the public in a small volume, published previously to the foregoing incident, in which publication a monody on the death of the unfortunate Chatterton was universally admired. In 1795, he published some antiministerial pamphlets; and in the following year, made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a periodical paper, called The Watchman, at the pers aasion, he says, of sundry philanthropists and antipolemists. His next publication was a poem on the prospect of peace; he shortly afterwards accompanied Sir Alexander Ball, governor of Malta, as his secretary; and, on his return from this employment, became entitled to a pension. This so far full liberty to pursue his literary designs, he engaged in the publication of a variety of works, and delivered two public courses of lectures, one on the plays of Shakspeare, and another on poetry and the belles lettres, which gained him a reputation for considerable oratorical powers. In 1813, he pub SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born at Bristol, about 1770, where he received the earliest portion of his education. He was afterwards sent to Christ's Hospital, London, where, he says, in his Biographia Literaria, "I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though, at the same time, a very severe master, the Rev. James Bowyer, who early moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid, &c." From Christ's Hospital he was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he obtained the Sir William Brown's gold medal, for the best Greek ode, in 1792. About the same time, he became acquainted with Southey, then a student of Baliol College, Oxford, and, like himself, imbued with ardent predilections for poesy and liberty. With him and some other young men, he entered into a scheme, which want of means alone prevented them from putting into execution, for settling on the Susque-improving his circumstances as to leave him at hannah river, in North America, under a pantisocratic form of society. About 1794, he retired to Alforton, in Somersetshire, where he was joined by his friend Wordsworth, with whom he passed his time in literary pursuits, and in wandering about the Quantock hills, with such an air of mystery, that they became objects of suspicion to the neigh-lished Remorse, a tragedy; followed, in 1817, by bourhood. A spy was set upon their conduct, and Sibylline Leaves; A Collection of Poems; his an examination actually appears to have taken Biographia Literaria, or biographical sketches of his place, by the village authorities, of a poor rustic life and opinions; and other works, poetical and who was supposed to have discovered their dan- political. In 1818, he commenced The Friend, a gerous designs. Our author has given a ludicrous series of essays, that extended to three volumes; account of this in the work before quoted from, and and in the tenth and eleventh numbers of which, the conclusion is worth extracting, as developing he says, he has left a record of his principles. In somewhat of his habits and character. "Has not 1825, he published Aids to Reflection, in the forthis Mr. Coleridge been wandering on the hills mation of a manly character, &c.; and, in 1830, his towards the channel, and along the shore, with Treatise on the Constitution of the Church and books and papers in his hand, taking charts and State, according to the idea of each: with aids tomaps of the country?"-" Why, as to that, your wards a right judgment of the late Catholic bill. honour," was the rustic's reply; "I am sure I Mr. Coleridge towards the close of life resided at would not wish to say ill of anybody; but it is Highgate, where he occasionally received his litecertain that I have heard-" "Speak out, man!rary friends, and passed his time in reading, and don't be afraid: you are doing your duty to your the amusements of his garden. He was said to king and government. What have you heard?" excel all his contemporaries in powers of argu"Why, folks do say, your honour, as how that he ment; and, when once fairly launched on any fais a poet; and that he is going to put Quan-vourite topic, to be possessed of the faculty of rivettock, and all about here, in print; and as they ing for hours, the attention of his audience by the (Wordsworth and Coleridge) be so much together, charm of his eloquence alone. He died July 25th, I suppose that the strange gentleman (Wordsworth) 1834. has some consarn in the business." The business which engaged him was the composition of a poem, to be called The Brook, which, had he finished, it was his intention to have dedicated to the committec of public safety, as containing the charts and In addition to the works already mentioned, he wrote, during the peace of Amiens, essays for The Morning Post and Courier. Mr. Fox is said to have pointed his allusion to these contributions, when he declared, that the war, which fol 520 lowed the above treaty, was a war raised by The Morning Post. Whilst Mr. Coleridge was staying at Rome, Bonaparte is said to have sent an order for his arrest, from which he was rescued, partly, by the forbearance of the late pope, Pius the Seventh. Our poet, however, has never displayed any evidence of his having been guided by any fixed political creed; and he altogether disowns, as was hinted by The Morning Chronicle, that he ever bettered his fortune by his labours as a political writer. Indeed, it is as a poet only that he will te known by posterity; however zealously his friends may labour to procure a reputation for him as the founder of a sect in morals or philosophy. The chief fault of Coleridge's poetry lies in the style, which has been justly objected to on account of its cbscurity, general turgidness of diction, and a profusion of new-coined double epithets. With regard to its obscurity, he says, in the preface to a late edition of his poems, that where he appears unintelligible," the deficiency is in the reader." This is nothing more or less than to suppose his readers endowed with the powers of divination; for we defy any one who is not in the confidence of the au thor upon this subject, to solve the riddle which is appended as a conclusion to Christabel. He might as well attribute deficiency of capacity to a beholder of his countenance, who should fail, in its workings, to discover the exact emotions of his mind; for Mr. Coleridge has afforded no clearer clue to the generality of his poetical arcana. This is particularly manifest in his singularly wild and striking poem of The Ancient Mariner, on which he is said to have written the following epigram, addressed to himself: "Your poem must eternal be, Dear sir! it cannot fail; For, 'tis incomprehensible, And without head or tail." Mr. Coleridge is unquestionably at the head of the Lake-school of poetry, and excels all his fraternity of that class in feeling, fancy, and sublimity. Some of his minor poems will bear comparison with those of the bards of this or any other age or country; and his verses on Love appear to us the most touching, delicate, and beautiful delineation of that passion that ever was penned. SIBYLLINE LEAVES. I. POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM. When I have borne in memory what has tamed who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1790; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the kings combined against France. The first and second antistrophe describe the image of the departing year, etc. as in a vision. The second epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country. SPIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of time! With inward stillness, and submitted mind; Starting from my silent sadness, Then with no unholy madness, Ere yet the enter'd cloud foreclosed my sight, I raised th' impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. II. Hither, from the recent tomb, From the prison's direr gloom, From distemper's midnight anguish ; And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish, Or where, o'er cradled infants bending, Ye woes! ye young-eyed joys! advance! Raises its fateful strings from sleep, I bid you haste, a mix'd, tumultuous band! And each domestic hearth, 2 x 2 And with a loud and yet a louder voice, Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth I mark'd Ambition in his war array! I heard the mailed monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the northern conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" Stunn'd by death's twice mortal mace, Th' insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye! Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain ! Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, When human ruin choked the streams, Fell in conquest's glutted hour, 'Mid women's shrieks and infant's screams! Spirits of the uncoffin'd slain, Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Oft, at night, in misty train, Rush around her narrow dwelling! The exterminating fiend is fled (Foul her life, and dark her doom)—– Mighty armies of the dead Dance like death-fires round her tomb! IV. Departing year! 'twas on no earthly shore My soul beheld thy vision! where alone, Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne, Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore, With many an unimaginable groan Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued, Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, The Spirit of the earth made reverence mest, V. Throughout the blissful throng, Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven (The mystic words of heaven) Permissive signal make: But chief by Afric's wrongs, Strange, horrible, and foul! To the deaf synod, 'full of gifts and hes!' For ever shall the thankless island scowl, Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud! VI. The voice had ceased, the vision fled; My ears throb hot; my eyeballs start; The soldier on the war-field spread, Lies pillow'd on a brother's corse!) Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, Echo to the bleat of flocks, Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore VIII. Abandon'd of Heaven! mad avarice thy guide, The fervent spirit bow'd, then spread his wings And join'd the wild yelling of famine and blood! and spake ! "Thou in stormy blackness throning By the earth's unsolaced groaning, Masked hate and envying scorn! And hunger's bosom to the frost winds bared! The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering Of central fires through nether seas upthundering The fiend hag on her perilous couch doth leap, Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep. IX. Away, my soul, away! In vain, in vain, the birds of warning singAnd hark! I hear the famish'd brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! Away, my soul, away! I, unpartaking of the evil thing, With daily prayer and daily toil Soliciting for food my scanty soil, Have wail'd my country with a loud lament. Now I recentre my immortal mind In the deep sabbath of meek self-content; Cleansed from the vaporous passions that bedim God's Image, sister of the Seraphim. FRANCE. AN ODE. I. YE clouds! that far above me float and pause, Ye woods! that listen to the night-birds' singing, How oft, pursuing fancies holy, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! And O ye clouds that far above me soar'd! When France in wrath her giant-limbs uprear'd, And with that oath, which smote air, earth and sea, Stamp'd her strong foot, and said she would be free, Bear witness for me, how I hoped and fear'd! Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band: And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves; To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat! For ne'er, O Liberty! with partial aim III. "And what," I said, "though blasphemy's loud scream With that sweet music of deliverance strove ! Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream! Ye storms, that round the dawning east assembled, The sun was rising, though he hid his light! And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled, The dissonance ceased, and all seem'd calm and bright; When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory When, insupportably advancing, Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp; While timid looks of fury glancing, Domestic treason, crush'd beneath her fatal stamp, Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore; Then I reproach'd my fears that would not flee; "And soon," I said, "shall wisdom teach her lore In the low huts of them that toil and groan! And, conquering by her happiness alone, Shall France compel the nations to be free, Till love and joy look round, and call the earth their own." IV. Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams! I hear thy groans upon her blood-stain'd streams! With bleeding wounds; forgive me that I cherish'd Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear; To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer- Are these thy boasts, champion of human kind? To mix with kings in the low lust of sway, Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey; To insult the shrine of liberty with spoils From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray? V. The sensual and the dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game They burst their manacles, and wear the name Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain! O Liberty! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Not prayer nor boastful name delays thee,) |