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THE

POETICAL WORKS

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

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JUVENILE POEMS

Genevieve - - - - -

Sonnet. To the Autumnal Moon -

Time, Real and Imaginary, an Allegory

Monody on the Death of Chatterton

Songs of the Pixies - - - - - -

The Raven, a Christmas Tale, told by a School-
boy to his little Brothers and Sisters . .

Absence; a Farewell Ode on quitting School

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— - O what a loud and fearful shriek
was there • . . . . . . . .

-— - As when far off the warbled strains

are heard - - - - - - - -

– “ Thou gentle look, that didst my soul
beguile • - - - - - - -
— = Pale roamer through the night! thou
poor forlorn!.

-— - Sweet Mercy

has bled a - - - - - -

— a Thou bleedest, my poor heart! and
thy distress . - - - - - -
--— To the Author of the « Robbers o

... Lines composed while climbing the left ascent

of Brockley Coomb, Somersetshire, May,

1795 . . - - - - - -

Lines, in the manner of Spenser

-— imitated from Ossian

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in Germany . . . . . . ib.
Home-sick—written in Germany il,

Answer to a Child's Question ib.

The Visionary Hope . . . 35

The Happy Husband; a Fragmen ib.
Recollections of Love . . . . . . ib.

On Re-visiting the Sea-shore after long absence ib.

The Composition of a Kiss . . . . 36

III. Medit Ative poems.
Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Wale of Cha-
mouny . . . . . . . . ib.

Lines written in the Album at Elbingerode, in

the Hartz Forest . . . . . 37

On observing a Blossom on the 1st of February,
1796 . . . . . . . . . ib.
The Eolian Harp — composed at Clevedon,

Somersetshire ib.

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** A Tombless Epitaph . . . 39 CHRISTABEL 66

This Lime-tree Bower my Prison . . . 40 - --

- A 73

To a Friend, who had declared his intention REMORSE; a Tragedy, in Five Acts
of writing no more Poetry . . . ib. ZAPOLYA ; a Christmas Tale.

To a Gentleman–composed on the night after PART I. The paelude, ENTITLED - The usuap-

his Recitation of a Poem on the Growth of Ea's fortune - 96

an Individual Mind - - - 41 - on t-

The Nightingale; a Conversation Poem . 42 o: sEQUEL, ENTITLED “ The usurp to 2

Frost at Midnight . . . . . . . 43 - - - - - - - - -

To a Friend, together with an unfinished Poem ib. | THE Piccolonisi, on The FiRST PART OF

The Hour when we shall meet again 44 WALLENSTEIN; a Drama, translated from

Lines to Joseph Cottle ib. the German of Schiller . . . . . 121

IV. odes AND Miscellaneous poeMs. the DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN; a tragedy, in

The Three Graves; a Fragment of a Sexton's Five Acts - - - - - 168

Tale - - - ib. THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE ; an Historic Drama 2 os

*** * *... . . . . . . . . . . 48|MISCELLANEous poeMs.—

Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire 49

Ode to Tranquillity . . . . . . 5o Phose IN ahYME ; on Epig RAMs, MoRALITIEs, AND

To a Young Friend, on his proposing to do- things without A NAME.

mesticate with the Author . . . ib. Love . . . . . . . . . . . ; ***

Lines to W. L. Esq., while he sang to Purcell's Duty surviving Self-love, the only Sure Friend

Music . . . . . . . . . 51 of Declining Life; a Soliloquy . 2 13

Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune, who Phantom or Fact? a Dialogue, in Verse . ib.
abandoned himself to an indolent and cause- ~e?Work without Hope . . . . . *.
less Melancholy . il. Youth and Age . . . . . . ib.
Sonnet to the River Otter . . . . ib. A Day-dream . . . . . . . . . . . 2 14
- composed on a Journey homeward; To a Lady, offended by a sportive observation
the Author having received intelligence of that women have no souls ... . . . . . i.
the Birth of a Son, Sept. 20, 1796 . . ib. * I have heard of reasons manifold - ib.
Sonnet—To a Friend, who asked how I felt Lines suggested by the Last Words of Beren- -
when the Nurse first presented my Infant to Garus. . . . . . . . . . ih.
Ine - - - - - - - - 52 The Devil's Thoughts . . . . . . ib.

The Virgin's Cradle Hymn . . . . ib. Constancy to an Ideal Object . . . . 215

On the Christening of a Friend's Child . ib. The Suicide's Argument, and Nature's Answer ib.

Epitaph on an Infant . . . . ib. The Blossoming of the Solitary Date-tree; a

Melancholy; a Fragment . . . . . ib. Lament ... . . . . . . . 216

Tell's Birth-place—imitated from Stolberg . 53 Fancy in Nubibus, or the Poet in the Clouds ib.
A Christmas Carol . . . . . . ib. The Two Founts; Stanzas addressed to a Lady
Human Life, on the Denial of Immortality ib. on her recovery, with unblemished looks, -
The Visit of the Gods—imitated from Schiller 54 from a overe attack of pain . ... ib.
Elegy—imitated from Akenside's blank verse What is Life? . 27
Inscriptions . . . . . . . . ib. The Exchange . . . . ... . . . . . ib.
A Kubla Khan; or, A Wision in a Dream . ib. Sonnet, composed by the Sea-side, October, -
The Pains of Sleep . 55 1817 - - - - - - ib.
Epigrams . . . . ib.

APPENDix. The Wanderings of Cain . 218

Apologetic Preface to a Fire, Famine, and Allegoric Vision . . . . . . 2 2-o

Slaughter . . . . . ib. The Improvisatore, or “John Anderson, my jo,

John - - - - - - . 2-2

6o The Garden of Boccaccio . 224

M THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

#iemoir of Şamuel QTaylor Coleriuge,

There is no writer of his time who has been more the theme of panegyric by his friends, and of censure by his enemies, than Coleridge. It has been the custom of the former to injure him by extr vagant praise, and of the latter to pour upon his head much unmerited abuse. Coleridge has left undone so much which his talents and genius would have enabled him to effect, and has done on the whole so little, that he has given his foes apparent foundation for some of their vituperation. His natural character, however, is indolent; he is far more ambitious of excelling in conversation, and of pouring out his wild philosophical theories—of discoursing about

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the mysteries of Kant, and the dreams of metaphysical vanity, than - in building the lofty rhyme... His poems, however, which have been recently collected, form several volumes;– and the beauty of some of his pieces so amply redeems the extravagance of others, that there can be but one regret respecting him, namely, that be should have preferred the short-lived perishing applause bestowed upon his conversation, to the lasting renown attending successful Poetical efforts. Not but that Coleridge may lay claim to the praise due to a successful worship of the muses; for as long as the English language endures, his a Geneviève- and Ancient Mariner" will be read : but he has been content to do far less than his abilities clearly demonstrate him able to effect. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery saint Mary, a town of Devonshire, in 1773. His rather, the fiev. John Coleridge, was vicar there, having been previously a schoolmaster at South Molton. He is said to have been a person cf considerable learning, and to have published several essays in fugitive publications. He assisted for Kennicot in collating his manuscripts for a Hebrew bible, and, among other things, wrote a dissertation on the Aoyos." He was also the author of an excellent Latin grammar. He died in 1782, at the age of sixty-two, much regretted, leaving a considerable family, three of which, if

so many, are all who now survive; and of these the poet is the youngest. Coleridge was educated at Christ's Hospitalschool, London. The smallness of his father's living and large family rendered the strictest economy necessary. At this excellent seminary he was soon discovered to be a boy of talent, eccentric but acute. According to his own statement the master, the Rev. J. Bowyer, was a severe disciplinarian after the inane practice of English grammar-school modes, but was fond of encouraging genius, even in the lads he flagellated most unmercifully. He taught with assiduity, and directed the taste of youth to the beauties of the better classical authors, and to comparisons of one with another. - He habituated me," says Coleridge, a to compare Lucretius, Terence, and above all the chaste poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the so called silver and brazen ages, but with even those of the Augustan era; and, on grounds of plain sense and universal logic, to see and assert the superiority of the former, in the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek tragic poets, he made us read Shakspeare and Milton as lessons; and they were the lessons too which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learned from bin that poetry, even that of the loftiest, and seemingly that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science, and more difficult; because more subtle and complex, and dependent on more and more fugitive causes. In our English compositions (at least for the last three years of our school education) he showed no mercy to phrase, image, or metaphor, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and lyre, muse, muses, and inspirations—Pegasus, Parnassus and Hippocrene, were all an abomination to him. In fancy, I can almost hear him now exclaiming—a Harp ! harp! lyre! pen and ink, boy, you means muse, boy muse! your nurse's daughter, you mean : Pierian spring ! O ay! the cloister pump, I suppose." In his • Literary Life," Coleridge has gone into the con

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