O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud- And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colours a suffusion from that light. There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff 75 Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, For not to think of what I needs must feel, From my own nature all the natural man— Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind, What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without, Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree, Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers, Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song, The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among. 'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is over It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud! A tale of less affright, And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 'T is of a little child Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her way: And now moans low in bitter grief and fear, And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear. 126 'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep: Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep! Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing, And may this storm be but a mountain-birth, May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth! With light heart may she rise, Gay fancy, cheerful eyes, Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice; To her may all things live, from pole to pole, Their life the eddying of her living soul! 1802. 140 Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE "Expende Annibalem: quot libras in duce summo Invenies?"-Juvenal, Sat. x. 'T is done-but yesterday a King! Is this the man of thousand thrones, Since he, miscalled the Morning Star, Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far. Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind By gazing on thyself grown blind, With might unquestion'd,-power to save,— To those that worshipp'd thee; Nor till thy fall could mortals guess Ambition's less than littleness! 9 18 Thanks for that lesson-It will teach Than high Philosophy can preach, That led them to adore Those Pagod things of sabre sway With fronts of brass, and feet of clay. The triumph and the vanity, The rapture of the strife The earthquake voice of Victory, To thee the breath of life; The sword, the sceptre, and that sway All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be The Desolator desolate! The Victor overthrown! The Arbiter of others' fate A Suppliant for his own! Is it some yet imperial hope That with such change can calmly cope? To die a prince-or live a slave- He who of old would rend the oak, 27 36 45 |