Chapter LXXXVII: Act IV: Scene I (3)

I have experienced
The worst the world can wreak on me--the worst
That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb
With whisper'd discontent the dying prayer--
I have beheld the whole of all, wherein
_My_ heart had any interest in this life
To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes
That nothing now is left. Why then live on?
That hostage that the world had in its keeping
Given by me as a pledge that I would live--
That hope of Her, say rather that pure Faith
In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce
With the tyranny of Life--is gone, ah! whither?
What boots it to reply? 'tis gone! and now
Well may I break this Pact, this league of Blood
That ties me to myself--and break I shall.

1810. First published from an MS. in 1893.

36

As when the new or full Moon urges
The high, large, long, unbreaking surges
Of the Pacific main.

1811. First published from an MS. in 1893.

37

O mercy, O me, miserable man!
Slowly my wisdom, and how slowly comes
My Virtue! and how rapidly pass off
My Joys! _my Hopes_! my Friendships, and my Love!

1811. Now first published from an MS.

38

A low dead Thunder mutter'd thro' the night,
As 'twere a giant angry in his sleep--
Nature! sweet nurse, O take me in thy lap
And tell me of my Father yet unseen,
Sweet tales, and true, that lull me into sleep
And leave me dreaming.

1811. First published from an MS. in 1893.

39

His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, Love's day-dawn on his lips,
Put on such heavenly, spiritual light,
At the same moment in his steadfast eye
Were Virtue's native crest, th' innocent soul's
Unconscious meek self-heraldry,--to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
He suffer'd nor complain'd;--though oft with tears
He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,--
And sometimes with a deeper holier grief
Mourn'd for the oppressor--but this in sabbath hours--
A solemn grief, that like a cloud at sunset,
Was but the veil of inward meditation
Pierced thro' and saturate with the intellectual rays
It soften'd.

1812. First published (with many alterations of the MS.) in _Lit. Rem._, i. 277. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1887, ii. 364. Compare Teresa's speech to Valdez, _Remorse_, Act IV, Scene II, lines 52-63 (_ante_, p. 866).

40

[ARS POETICA]

In the two following lines, for instance, there is nothing objectionable, nothing which would preclude them from forming, in their proper place, part of a descriptive poem:--

'Behold yon row of pines, that shorn and bow'd
Bend from the sea-blast, seen at twilight eve.'

But with a small alteration of rhythm, the same words would be equally in their place in a book of topography, or in a descriptive tour. The same image will rise into a semblance of poetry if thus conveyed:--

'Yon row of bleak and visionary pines,
By twilight-glimpse discerned, mark! how they flee
From the fierce sea-blast, all their tresses wild
Streaming before them.'

1815. First published in _Biog. Lit._, 1817, ii. 18; 1847, ii. 20. First collected 1893.

41

TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST STROPHE OF PINDAR'S SECOND OLYMPIC

'_As nearly as possible word for word._'

Ye harp-controlling hymns!

(or)

Ye hymns the sovereigns of harps!
What God? what Hero?
What Man shall we celebrate?
Truly Pisa indeed is of Jove,
But the Olympiad (or, the Olympic games) did Hercules establish,
The first-fruits of the spoils of war.
But Theron for the four-horsed car
That bore victory to him,
It behoves us now to voice aloud:
The Just, the Hospitable,
The Bulwark of Agrigentum,
Of renowned fathers
The Flower, even him
Who preserves his native city erect and safe.

1815. First published in _Biog. Lit._, 1817, ii. 90; 1847, ii. 93. First collected 1893.

42

O! Superstition is the giant shadow
Which the solicitude of weak mortality,
Its back toward Religion's rising sun,
Casts on the thin mist of th' uncertain future.

1816. First published from an MS. in 1893.

43

TRANSLATION OF A FRAGMENT OF HERACLITUS[1007:1]

Not hers
To win the sense by words of rhetoric,
Lip-blossoms breathing perishable sweets;
But by the power of the informing Word
Roll sounding onward through a thousand years
Her deep prophetic bodements.

1816. First published in _Lit. Rem._, iii. 418, 419. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 367.

44

Truth I pursued, as Fancy sketch'd the way,
And wiser men than I went worse astray.

First published as Motto to Essay II, _The Friend_, 1818, ii. 37; 1850, ii. 27. First collected 1893.

45

IMITATED FROM ARISTOPHANES

(_Nubes_ 315, 317.)

μεγάλαι θεαὶ ἀνδράσιν ἀργοῖς,
αἵπερ γνώμην καὶ διάλεξιν καὶ νοῦν ἡμῖν παρέχουσι
καὶ τερατείαν καὶ περίλεξιν καὶ κροῦσιν καὶ καταληψιν.

For the ancients . . . had their glittering VAPORS, which (as the comic poet tells us) fed a host of sophists.

Great goddesses are they to lazy folks,
Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech,
Sense most sententious, wonderful fine _effect_,
And how to talk about it and about it,
Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy.

1817. First published in _The Friend_, 1818, iii. 179; 1850, iii. 138. First collected 1893.

46

Let clumps of earth, however glorified,
Roll round and round and still renew their cycle--
Man rushes like a winged Cherub through
The infinite space, and that which has been
Can therefore never be again----

1820. First published from an MS. in 1893.

47

TO EDWARD IRVING

But _you_, honored IRVING, are as little disposed as myself to favor _such_ doctrine! [as that of Mant and D'Oyly on Infant Baptism].

Friend pure of heart and fervent! we have learnt
A different lore! We may not thus profane
The Idea and Name of Him whose Absolute Will
_Is_ Reason--Truth Supreme!--Essential Order!

1824. First published in _Aids to Reflection_, 1825, p. 373. First collected 1893.

48

[LUTHER--DE DÆMONIBUS]

_The devils are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in dark pooly places, ready to hurt and prejudice people, etc._--_Doctoris Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia_--(Translated by Captain Henry Bell. London, 1652, p. 370).

'The angel's like a flea,
The devil is a bore;--'
No matter for that! quoth S. T. C.,
I love him the better therefore.

Yes! heroic Swan, I love thee even when thou gabblest like
a goose; for thy geese helped to save the Capitol.

1826. First published in _Lit. Rem._, 1839, iv. 52. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 367.

49

THE NETHERLANDS

Water and windmills, greenness, Islets green;--
Willows whose Trunks beside the shadows stood
Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp:--
Farmhouses that at anchor seem'd--in the inland sky
The fog-transfixing Spires--
Water, wide water, greenness and green banks,
And water seen--

June 1828. Now first published from an MS.

50

ELISA[1009:1]

TRANSLATED FROM CLAUDIAN

Dulce dona mihi tu mittis semper Elisa!
Et quicquid mittis Thura putare decet.

The above adapted from an Epigram of Claudian [No. lxxxii, Ad Maximum Qui mel misit], by substituting _Thura_ for _Mella_: the original Distich being in return for a present of Honey.

_Imitation_

Sweet Gift! and always doth Elisa send
Sweet Gifts and full of fragrance to her Friend
Enough for Him to know they come from HER:
Whate'er she sends is Frankincense and Myrrh.

ANOTHER ON THE SAME SUBJECT BY S. T. C. HIMSELF

Semper Elisa! mihi tu suaveolentia donas:
Nam quicquid donas, te redolere puto.

_Translation_

Whate'er thou giv'st, it still is sweet to me,
For _still_ I find it redolent of thee.

1833, 4. Now first published from an MS.

51

PROFUSE KINDNESS

Νήπιοι οὐδὲ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον πλέον ἥμισυ πάντος.
HESIOD. [_Works and Days_, l. 40.]

What a spring-tide of Love to dear friends in a shoal!
Half of it to one were worth double the whole!

Undated. First published in _P. W._, 1834.

52

I stand alone, nor tho' my heart should break,
Have I, to whom I may complain or speak.
Here I stand, a hopeless man and sad,
Who hoped to have seen my Love, my Life.
And strange it were indeed, could I be glad
Remembering her, my soul's betrothéd wife.
For in this world no creature that has life
Was e'er to me so gracious and so good.
Her loss is to my Heart, like the Heart's blood.

? S. T. C. Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893. These lines are inscribed on a fly-leaf of Tom. II of Benedetto Menzini's _Poesie_, 1782.

53

NAPOLEON

The Sun with gentle beams his rage disguises,
And, like aspiring Tyrants, temporises--
Never to be endured but when he falls or rises.

? S. T. C. Undated. Now first published from an MS.

54

Thicker than rain-drops on November thorn.

Undated. Now first published from an MS.

55

His native accents to her stranger's ear,
Skill'd in the tongues of France and Italy--
Or while she warbles with bright eyes upraised,
Her fingers shoot like streams of silver light
Amid the golden haze of thrilling strings.

Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.

56

Each crime that once estranges from the virtues
Doth make the memory of their features daily
More dim and vague, till each coarse counterfeit
Can have the passport to our confidence
Sign'd by ourselves. And fitly are they punish'd
Who prize and seek the honest man but as
A safer lock to guard dishonest treasures.

? S. T. C. Undated. First published in _Lit. Rem._, i. 281. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 365.

57

Where'er I find the Good, the True, the Fair,
I ask no names--God's spirit dwelleth there!
The unconfounded, undivided Three,
Each for itself, and all in each, to see
In man and Nature, is Philosophy.

Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.

58

A wind that with Aurora hath abiding
Among the Arabian and the Persian Hills.

Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.

59

I [S. T. C.] find the following lines among my papers, in my own writing, but whether an unfinished fragment, or a contribution to some friend's production, I know not:--

What boots to tell how o'er his grave
She wept, that would have died to save;
Little they know the heart, who deem
Her sorrow but an infant's dream
Of transient love begotten;
A passing gale, that as it blows
Just shakes the ripe drop from the rose--
That dies and is forgotten.
O Woman! nurse of hopes and fears,
All lovely in thy spring of years,
Thy soul in blameless mirth possessing,
Most lovely in affliction's tears,
More lovely still than tears suppressing.

Undated. First published in Allsop's _Letters, Conversations_, &c. First collected _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii. 373.

60

THE THREE SORTS OF FRIENDS

Though friendships differ endless _in degree_,
The _sorts_, methinks, may be reduced to three.
_Ac_quaintance many, and _Con_quaintance few;
But for _In_quaintance I know only two--
The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!

MY DEAR GILLMAN--The ground and _matériel_ of this division of one's friends into _ac_, _con_ and _in_quaintance, was given by Hartley Coleridge when he was scarcely five years old [1801]. On some one asking him if Anny Sealy (a little girl he went to school with) was an acquaintance of his, he replied, very fervently pressing his right hand on his heart, 'No, she is an _in_quaintance!' 'Well! 'tis a father's tale'; and the recollection soothes your old friend and _in_quaintance,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Undated. First published in _Fraser's Magazine_ for Jan. 1835, Art. _Coleridgeiana_, p. 54. First collected 1893.

61

If fair by Nature
She honours the fair Boon with fair adorning,
And graces that bespeak a gracious breeding,
Can gracious Nature lessen Nature's Graces?
If taught by both she betters both and honours
Fair gifts with fair adorning, know you not
There is a beauty that resides within;--
A fine and delicate spirit of womanhood
Of inward birth?--

Now first published from an MS.

62

BO-PEEP AND I SPY--

In the corner _one_--
I spy Love!
In the corner _None_,
I spy Love.

1826. Now first published from an MS.

63

A SIMILE

As the shy hind, the soft-eyed gentle Brute
Now moves, now stops, approaches by degrees--
At length emerges from the shelt'ring Trees,
Lur'd by her Hunter with the Shepherd's flute,
Whose music travelling on the twilight breeze,
When all besides was mute--
She oft had heard, and ever lov'd to hear;
She fearful Beast! but that no sound of Fear----

Undated. Now first published from an MS.

64

BARON GUELPH OF ADELSTAN. A FRAGMENT

For ever in the world of Fame
We live and yet abide the same:
Clouds may intercept our rays,
Or desert Lands reflect our blaze.

The beauteous Month of May began,
And all was Mirth and Sport,
When Baron Guelph of Adelstan
Took leave and left the Court.

From Fête and Rout and Opera far
The full town he forsook,
And changed his wand and golden star
For Shepherd's Crown and Crook.

The knotted net of light and shade
Beneath the budding tree,
A sweeter day-bed for him made
Than Couch and Canopy.

In copse or lane, as Choice or Chance
Might lead him was he seen;
And join'd at eve the village dance
Upon the village green.

Nor endless--

Undated. Now first published from an MS.

FOOTNOTES:

[996:1] The following 'Fragments', numbered 1-63, consist of a few translations and versicles inserted by Coleridge in his various prose works, and a larger number of fragments, properly so called, which were published from MS. sources in 1893, or are now published for the first time. These fragments are taken exclusively from Coleridge's Notebooks (the source of _Anima Poetæ_, 1895), and were collected, transcribed, and dated by the present Editor for publication in 1893. The fragments now published for the first time were either not used by J. D. Campbell in 1893, or had not been discovered or transcribed. The very slight emendations of the text are due to the fact that Mr. Campbell printed from copies, and that the collection as a whole has now for the second time been collated with the original MSS. Fragments numbered 64, 96, 98, 111, 113, in _P. W._, 1893, are quotations from the plays and poems of William Cartwright (1611-1643). They are not included in the present issue. Fragments 56, 58, 59, 61, 63, 67, 80, 81, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94, 117-120, are inserted in the text or among 'Jeux d'Esprit', or under other headings. The chronological order is for the most part conjectural, and differs from that suggested in 1893. It must be borne in mind that the entries in Coleridge's Notebooks are not continuous, and that the additional matter in prose or verse was inserted from time to time, wherever a page or half a page was not filled up. It follows that the context is an uncertain guide to the date of any given entry. Pains have been taken to exclude quotations from older writers, which Coleridge neither claimed nor intended to claim for his own, but it is possible that two or three of these fragments of verse are not original.

[996:2] This quatrain, described as 'The concluding stanza of an Elegy on a Lady who died in Early Youth', is from part of a memorandum in S. T. C.'s handwriting headed 'Relics of my School-boy Muse; i. e. fragments of poems composed before my fifteenth year'. It follows _First Advent of Love_, 'O fair is Love's first hope,' &c. (vide _ante_, p. 443), and is compared with Age--a stanza written forty years later than the preceding--'Dewdrops are the gems of morning,' &c. (p. 440).

ANOTHER VERSION.

O'er her piled grave the gale of evening sighs,
And flowers will grow upon its grassy slope,
I wipe the dimming waters from mine eye
Even on the cold grave dwells the Cherub Hope.

_Unpublished Letter to Thomas Poole_, Feb. 1. 1801, on the death of Mrs. Robinson ('Perdita').

[997:1] These two lines, slightly altered, were afterwards included in _Alice du Clos_ (ll. 111, 112), _ante_, p. 473.

[998:1] The lines are an attempt to reduce to blank verse one of many minute descriptions of natural objects and scenic effects. The concluding lines are illegible.

[1001:1] These lines, 'slip torn from some old letter,' are endorsed by Poole, 'Reply of Coleridge on my urging him to exert himself.' First collected in 1893.

[1007:1] The translation is embodied in a marginal note on the following quotation from _The Select Discourses_ by John Smith, 1660:--

'_So the Sibyl was noted by Heraclitus as μαινομένῳ στόματι γελαστὰ καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα φθεγγομένη, as one speaking ridiculous and unseemly speeches with her furious mouth._' The fragment is misquoted and misunderstood: for γελαστά, etc. should be ἀμύριστα unperfumed, inornate lays, not redolent of art.--Render it thus:

Not her's, etc.
Στόματι μαινομένῳ is 'with ecstatic mouth'.

J. D. Campbell in a note to this Fragment (_P. W._, 1893, pp. 464-5) quotes the 'following prose translation of the same passage', from Coleridge's _Statesman's Manual_ (1816, p. 132); 'Multiscience (or a variety and quantity of acquired knowledge) does not test intelligence. But the Sibyll with wild enthusiastic mirth shrilling forth unmirthful, inornate and unperfumed truths, reaches to a thousand years with her voice through the power of God.'

The prose translation is an amalgam of two fragments. The first sentence is quoted by Diogenes Laertius, ix. 1: the second by Plutarch, de Pyth. orac. 6, p. 377.

[1009:1] These rhymes were addressed to a Miss Eliza Nixon, who supplied S. T. C. with books from a lending library.

METRICAL EXPERIMENTS[1014:1]

1

AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE

I heard a voice pealing loud triumph to-day:
The voice of the Triumph, O Freedom, was thine!
Sumptuous Tyranny challeng'd the fray,[1014:2]
'Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.'
Whose could the Triumph be Freedom but thine?
Stars of the Heaven shine to feed thee;
Hush'd are the Whirl-blasts and heed thee;--
By her depth, by her height, Nature swears thou art mine!

1. Amphibrach tetrameter catalectic ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯

2. Ditto.

3. Three pseudo amphimacers, and one long syllable.

4. Two dactyls, and one perfect Amphimacer.

5. = 1 and 2.

6. ¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ |

7. ¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ |

8. ¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ¯, ¯ ˘ ¯, ¯ ˘ ¯

1801. Now first published from an MS.

2

TROCHAICS

Thus she said, and, all around,
Her diviner spirit, gan to borrow;
Earthly Hearings hear unearthly sound,
Hearts heroic faint, and sink aswound.
Welcome, welcome, spite of pain and sorrow,
Love to-day, and Thought to-morrow.

1801. Now first published from an MS.

3

THE PROPER UNMODIFIED DOCHMIUS

(_i. e._ antispastic Catalectic)

Bĕnīgn shōōtĭng stārs, ĕcstātīc dĕlīght.

_or_

The Lord's throne in Heaven ămīd āngĕl troops
Amid troops of Angels God throned on high.

1801. Now first published from an MS.

4

IAMBICS

No cold shall thee benumb,
Nor darkness stain thy sight;
To thee new Heat, new Light
Shall from this object come,
Whose Praises if thou now wilt sound aright,
My Pen shall give thee leave hereafter to be dumb.

1801. Now first published from an MS.

5

NONSENSE

Sing impassionate Soul! of Mohammed the complicate story:
Sing, unfearful of Man, groaning and ending in care.
Short the Command and the Toil, but endlessly mighty the Glory!
Standing aloof if it chance, vainly our enemy's scare:
What tho' we wretchedly fare, wearily drawing the Breath--,
Malice in wonder may stare; merrily move we to Death.

Now first published from an MS.

6

A PLAINTIVE MOVEMENT

[11´ 4` 11´ 4` | 10´ 6` 4´ 10`]

Go little Pipe! for ever I must leave thee,
Ah, vainly true!
Never, ah never! must I more receive thee?
Adieu! adieu!
Well, thou art gone! and what remains behind,
Soothing the soul to Hope?
The moaning Wind--
Hide with sere leaves my Grave's undaisied Slope.

(?) October. 1814.

[It would be better to alter this metre--

10´ 6` 6´ 10` | 11´ 4` 11´ 4`: and still more plaintive if the 1st and 4th were 11´ 11´ as well as the 5th and 7th.]

Now first published from an MS.

7

AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE

˘ ˘ ¯, ˘ ˘ ¯
˘ ˘ ¯, ˘ ˘ ¯
˘ ¯ }
¯ ˘ ¯ } ˘ ˘ ¯; ˘ ˘ ¯, ˘ ˘ ¯,
˘ ¯ }
¯ ˘ ¯ } ˘ ˘ ¯, ˘ ˘ ¯, ˘ ˘ ¯
˘ ¯ }
˘ ˘ ¯ } ˘ ˘ ¯, ˘ ˘ ¯

When thy Beauty appears,
In its graces and airs,
All bright as an Angel new dight from the Sky,
At distance I gaze, and am awed by my fears,
So strangely you dazzle my Eye.

Now first published from an MS.

8

NONSENSE VERSES

[AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE]

Ye fowls of ill presage,
Go vanish into Night!
Let all things sweet and fair
Yield homage to the pair:
From Infancy to Age
Each Brow be smooth and bright,
As Lake in evening light.
To-day be Joy! and Sorrow
Devoid of Blame
(The widow'd Dame)
Shall welcome be to-morrow.
Thou, too, dull Night! may'st come unchid:
This wall of Flame the Dark hath hid
With turrets each a Pyramid;--
For the Tears that we shed, are Gladness,
A mockery of Sadness!

Now first published from an MS.

9

NONSENSE

[AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE]

I wish on earth to sing
Of Jove the bounteous store,
That all the Earth may ring
With Tale of Wrong no more.
I fear no foe in field or tent,
Tho' weak our cause yet strong his Grace:
As Polar roamers clad in Fur,
Unweeting whither we were bent
We found as 'twere a native place,
Where not a Blast could stir:
{ For Jove had his Almighty Presence lent:
{ Each eye beheld, in each transfigured Face,
{ The radiant light of Joy, and Hope's forgotten Trace.

_or_

{ O then I sing Jove's bounteous store--
{ On rushing wing while sea-mews roar,
{ And raking Tides roll Thunder on the shore.

Now first published from an MS.

10

EXPERIMENTS IN METRE

There in some darksome shade
Methinks I'd weep
Myself asleep,
And there forgotten fade.

First published from an MS. in 1893.

11

Once again, sweet Willow, wave thee!
Why stays my Love?
Bend, and in yon streamlet--lave thee!
Why stays my Love?
Oft have I at evening straying,
Stood, thy branches long surveying,
Graceful in the light breeze playing,--
Why stays my Love?

1. Four Trochees /.

2. One spondee, Iambic \.

3. Four Trochees 1.

4. Repeated from 2.

5, 6, 7. A triplet of 4 Trochees--8 repeated.

First published from an MS. in 1893.

12

¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘
¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘,
¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘
˘ ¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯
¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘
˘ ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ etc.

Songs of Shepherds and rustical Roundelays,
Forms of Fancies and whistled on Reeds,
Songs to solace young Nymphs upon Holidays
Are too unworthy for wonderful deeds--
Round about, hornéd
Lucinda they swarméd,
And her they informéd,
How minded they were,
Each God and Goddess,
To take human Bodies
As Lords and Ladies to follow the Hare.

Now first published from an MS.

13

A METRICAL ACCIDENT

Curious instance of casual metre and rhyme in a prose narrative (_The Life of Jerome of Prague_). The metre is Amphibrach dimeter Catalectic ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯, and the rhymes antistrophic.

Then Jerome did call _a_
From his flame-pointed Fence; _b_
Which under he trod, _c_
As upward to mount _d_
From the fiery flood,-- _e_

'I summon you all, _a_
A hundred years hence, _b_
To appear before God, _c_
To give an account _d_
Of my innocent blood!' _e_

July 7, 1826. Now first published from an MS.

NOTES BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY

1. I think most ears would take these as anapaestic throughout. But the introduction of Milton's

Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine

as a _leit-motiv_ is of the first interest.

Description of it, l. 4, very curious. I should have thought no one could have run 'drunk with wine' together as one foot.

2. Admirable! I hardly know better trochaics.

3. Very interesting: but the terminology odd. The dochmius, a five-syllabled foot, is (in _one_ form--there are about thirty!) an antispast ˘ ¯ ¯ ˘ _plus_ a syllable. Catalectic means (_properly_) _minus_ a syllable. But the verses as quantified are really dochmiac, and the only attempts I have seen. Shall I own I can't get any _English_ Rhythm on them?

4. More ordinary: but a good arrangement and wonderful for the date.

5. Not nonsense at all: but, metrically, really his usual elegiac.

6. This, _if early_, is almost priceless. It is not only lovely in itself, but an obvious attempt to recover the zig-zag outline and varied cadence of seventeenth century born--the things that Shelley to some extent, Beddoes and Darley more, and Tennyson and Browning most were to master. I subscribe (most humbly) to his suggestions, especially his second.

7. Very like some late seventeenth-century (Dryden time) motives and a _leetle_ 'Moorish'.

8. Like 6, and charming.

9. A sort of recurrence to _Pindaric_--again pioneer, as the soul of S. T. C. _had_ to be always.

10 and 11. Ditto.

13. Again, _I_ should say, anapaestic--but this anapaest and amphibrach quarrel is ἄσπονδος.

FOOTNOTES:

[1014:1] 'He attributed in part, his writing so little, to the extreme care and labour which he applied in elaborating his metres. He said that when he was intent on a new experiment in metre, the time and labour he bestowed were inconceivable; that he was quite an epicure in sound.'--Wordsworth on Coleridge (as reported by Mr. Justice Coleridge), _Memoirs of W. Wordsworth_, 1851, ii. 306.

In a letter to Poole dated March 16, 1801, Coleridge writes: 'I shall . . . immediately publish my _Christabel_, with the Essays on the "Preternatural", and on Metre' (_Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 349). Something had been done towards the collection of materials for the first 'Essay', a great deal for the second. In a notebook (No. 22) which contains dated entries of 1805, 1815, &c., but of which the greater portion, as the context and various handwritings indicate, belongs to a much earlier date, there are some forty-eight numbered specimens of various metres derived from German and Italian sources. To some of these stanzas or strophes a metrical scheme with original variants is attached, whilst other schemes are exemplified by metrical experiments in English, headed 'Nonsense Verses'. Two specimens of these experiments, headed 'A Sunset' and 'What is Life', are included in the text of _P. W._, 1893 (pp. 172, 178), and in that of the present issue, pp. 393, 394. They are dated 1805 in accordance with the dates of Coleridge's own comments or afterthoughts, but it is almost certain that both sets of verses were composed in 1801. The stanza entitled 'An Angel Visitant' belongs to the same period. Ten other sets of 'Nonsense Verses' of uncertain but early date are now printed for the first time.

[1014:2] Sumptuous Tyranny floating this way. [MS.] On p. 17 of Notebook 22 Coleridge writes:--

¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘, ¯
Drunk with I--dolatry--drunk with, Wine.

A noble metre if I can find a metre to precede or follow.

Sūmptŭŏus Dālĭlă flōatĭng thŭs wāy
Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.

Both lines are from Milton's _Samson Agonistes_.