Here man is lord, not drudge, of eyes Freedom for you still waits, still, look

and feet and hands.
And to his life is knit with hourly

ing backward, stays,

But widens still the irretrievable

bands.

73

space.

And all the mint and anise that I For the same wave that rims the Carib

But dost refresh with punctual over- And though thy healing waters far flow withdraw,

The rifts where unregarded mosses be? I, too, can wait and feed on hope of Thee

The drooping seaweed hears, in night And of the dear recurrence of Thy abyssed,

law,

Far and more far the wave's receding Sure that the parting grace my morn

Nor doubts, for all the darkness and Abides its time to come in search of

are.

COLERIDGE has taken the old ballad measure and given to it by an indefinable charm wholly his own all the sweetness, all the melody and compass of a symphony. And how picturesque it is in the proper sense of the word. I know nothing like it. There is not a description in it. It is all picture. Descriptive poets generally confuse us with multiplicity of detail; we cannot see their forest for the trees; but Coleridge never errs in this way. With instinctive tact he touches the right chord of association, and is satisfied, as we also I should find it hard to explain the singular charm of his diction, there is so much nicety of art and purpose in it, whether for music or meaning. Nor does it need any explanation, for we all feel it. The words seem common words enough, but in the order of them, in the choice, variety, and position of the vowel-sounds, they become magical. The most decrepit vocable in the language throws away its crutches to dance and sing at his piping. I cannot think it a personal peculiarity, but a matter of universal experience, that more bits of Coleridge have imbedded themselves in my memory than of any other poet who delighted my youth unless I should except the sonnets of Shakespeare, This argues perfectness of expression. Let me cite an example or two :

With far-heard whisper through the dark
Off shot the spectre barque."

Or take this as a bit of landscape :

"Beneath yon birch with silver bark

And boughs so pendulous and fair,

The brook falls scattered down the rock,

And all is mossy there."

It is a perfect little picture and seems so easily done. But try to do something like it. Coleridge's words have the unashamed nakedness of Scripture, of the Eden of diction ere the voluble serpent had entered it. This felicity of speech in Coleridge's best verse is the more remarkable because it was an acquisition. His earlier poems are apt to be turgid; in his prose there is too often a languor of profuseness, and there are pages where he seems to be talking to himself and not to us, as I have heard a guide do in the tortuous caverns of the Catacombs when he was doubtful if he had not lost his way. But when his genius runs freely and full in his prose, the style, as he said of Paschal, " is a garment of light." He knew all our best prose and knew the secret of its composition. When he is well inspired, as in his best poetry he commonly is, he gives us the very quintessence of perception, the clearly crystallized precipitation of all that is most precious in the ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive particulars have evaporated from the memory. It is the pure visual ecstacy disengaged from the confused and confusing material that gave it birth. It seems the very beatitude of artless simplicity. and is the most finished product of art. I know nothing so perfect in its kind since Dante.

76

ON PLANTING A TREE AT INVERARAY.

WHO does his duty is a question
Too complex to be solved by me,
But he, I venture the suggestion,
Does part of his that plants a tree.

For after he is dead and buried,
And epitaphed, and well forgot,
Nay, even his shade by Charon ferried
To-let us not inquire to what,

His deed, its author long outliving,
By Nature's mother-care increased,
Shall stand, his verdant almoner, giving
A kindly dole to man and beast.

The wayfarer, at noon reposing,
Shall bless its shadow on the grass,
Or sheep beneath it huddle, dozing
Until the thundergust o'erpass.

The owl, belated in his plundering,
Shall here await the friendly night,

Blinking whene'er he wakes, and wondering

What fool it was invented light.

Hither the busy birds shall flutter,
With the light timber for their nests,
And, pausing from their labor, ut-

ter

The morning sunshine in their breasts.

What though his memory shall have
vanished,

Since the good deed he did survives ?
It is not wholly to be banished
Thus to be part of many lives.

Grow, then, my foster-child, and strengthen,

Bough over bough, a murmurous pile, And as your stately stem shall lengthen,

So may the statelier of Argyll !