20

COLERIDGE.-Born, 1772; Died, 1834.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a poet, philosopher, and theologian, was the son of a clergyman, and was born in Devon. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and was a short time at Cambridge. His poetry is of the very highest order, but is not of great extent. religious thinker he has exercised great influence.

As a

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALLEY OF
CHAMOUNI.1

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 sovereign Blanc ! 2
The Arvé and Arveiron3 at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee, and above,
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge. But when I look again,
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
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

1 Valley of Chamouni, one of
the valleys of Mont Blanc.

2 Mont Blanc, a Swiss mountain,

Two

3 Arvé and Arveiron.
streams which flow from Mont
Blanc-or, the White Mountain.

which rises to the height of 15.744 feet above the level of the sea.

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;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, 5
Into the mighty vision passing-there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven.

6

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
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!
Oh,-struggling with the darkness all the night,
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!
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,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered, and the same for ever?

' dilating, expanding.
'transfused, poured out into
something else.

6 ecstacy, rapture.

7 here, for either.

8 torrents flowing from the mountain.

Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
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—1o
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
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-11
GOD! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, GOD!

GOD! sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice!
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, GOD!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth GOD, and fill the hills with praise!

The glaciers, or ice-rivers. 10 Vehemently, suddenly.

11 Flowers grow up to the edge of the glaciers.

Robert Southey was born at Bristol, in 1774, and was educated at Westminster School and Oxford. He became one of the foremost writers of the age. His poems are of great beauty, and his prose ranks amongst the best in the language. He died in 1843.

KAILYAL IS BORNE TO INDRA'S PARADISE.

Ereenia is a Glendoveer, one of the good spirits of Eastern poetry. He finds Kailyal lying, like to die, and bears her first to the Holy Mount, and thence in a Ship of Heaven to the Swerga, or Paradise of Indra, the god of the elements.

Lo! at Ereenia's voice

A Ship of Heaven1 comes sailing down the skies.
"Where wouldst thou bear her ?" cries
The ancient Sire of Gods.

"Straight to the Swerga, to my bower of bliss,"
The Glendoveer replies,

"To Indra's own abodes."

Then, in the Ship of Heaven, Ereenia laid
The waking, wondering Maid;

The Ship of Heaven, instinct with thought, displayed
Its living sail, and glides along the sky.

On either side in wavy tide,

The clouds of morn along its path divide; The Winds who swept in wild career on high, Before its presence check their charmed force; The Winds, that loitering lagged along their course,

I ship of heaven, The Hindoo

poets fancy that the gods pass from place to place in a self

moving car. Southey has changed this into the finer idea of a ship.

2

Around the living Bark enamoured play, Swell underneath the sail, and sing before its way. That Bark, in shape, was like the furrowed shell Wherein the Sea-nymphs to their parent king, On festal day, their duteous offerings bring. Its hue?... Go watch the last green light Ere evening yields the western sky to Night; Or fix upon the Sun thy strenuous sight Till thou hast reached its orb of chrysolite.3 The sail, from end to end displayed, Bent, like a rainbow, o'er the Maid. An Angel's head, with visual eye, Through trackless space, directs its chosen way; Nor aid of wing, nor foot, nor fire, Requires to voyage o'er the obedient sky.

Smooth as the swan when not a breeze at even
Disturbs the surface of the silver streams,
Through air and sunshine sails the Ship of Heaven.
Recumbent there the Maiden glides along
On her aërial way,

How swift she feels not, though the swiftest wind
Had flagged in flight behind.

Motionless as a sleeping babe she lay,
And all serene in mind,

Feeling no fear; for that ethereal air
With such new life and joyance filled her heart,
Fear could not enter there;

sea nymphs, the Neroides, or
daughters of Nereus: the fancied
water nymphs, or maidens, of the
Mediterranean. They were about
fifty in number, very beautiful;

lived at the bottom of the sea, and were very friendly to sailors. 3 chrysolite, apparently a kind of topaz, of a golden colour, streaked with green and white,