Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, That had no need of a remoter charm, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Nor perchance, If I were not thus taught, should I the more For thou art with me here upon the banks My former pleasures in the shooting lights My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, And let the misty mountain-winds be free For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams That on the banks of this delightful stream V SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE S' (1772-1834) EVERAL of the great English poets have been more or less insane, according to the standards of commonplace human mortals. Blake, in his later years, faded away in a mystical cloud. Rossetti was addicted to the use of chloral for insomnia, till his mind was in a measure like a vessel loosened from its moorings. Poe felt and acknowledged the moments of insanity in which he did and wrote things to himself unaccountable. And Coleridge belongs to the same class, but his golden mind succeeded in catching the witching loveliness of terrifying dreams, and singing with ethereal melody the strange and supernatural, as if they really were a part of our common existence. Coleridge produced less than half-a-dozen poems of the first excellence, and all of these early in life. He wandered into metaphysical speculations, and for years he lived under the exciting and deadening influence of opium. There is a tradition of his occasional brilliancy of conversation; but in spite of many plans and the encouragement of friends, he accomplished nothing. Some one has remarked that Coleridge's good work could be compressed into twenty pages, but that should be bound in pure gold. We are tempted to regret that so brilliant a mind should so have wasted its efforts and failed in its purposes. But as those moments of strange terror and revelation come to us but seldom, if ever, and frequent visitations would shatter our sanity, it seems fairer to believe that Coleridge put into his twenty pages the mental power of a lifetime. Certainly we need no more to place him forever in the company of the greatest poets. Speaking of "Christabel" and "The Ancient Mariner," an American poet says: "They act upon the mind with a weird-like influence, searching out the most obscure recesses of the soul and making mysterious emotions in the very centre of our being, and then sending them to glide along every nerve and vein with the effect of enchantment. It is as if we were possessed with a subtle insanity or had stolen a glance into the occult secrets of the universe. All our customary impressions of things are shaken by the intrusion of an indefinite sense of fear and amazement into the soul. . . . He could stir that supernatural fear in the heart which he has so powerfully expressed in one stanza of the Ancient Mariner a fear from which no person, poet or prosaist, has ever been entirely free, and which makes the blood of the pleasantest atheist at times turn cold and his philosophy slide away under his feet." But there was in "The Ancient Mariner something more than terror. Says Swinburne: "The tenderness of sentiment which touches with significant color the pure white imagination is here soft and piteous enough, but womanly rather than effeminate." "I conceive the leading point about THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER IT is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 66 By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? "The Bridegroom's doors are open'd wide, The guests are met, the feast is set : He holds him with his skinny hand - "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon !" He holds him with his glittering eye - The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. "The ship was cheer'd, the harbour clear'd, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. "The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. |