plained and which, if explained, indeed, may be said to be heaped up would be regarded by many as merely to superfluity-and so it is the lanfantastic and evanescent. What, ac- guage to be redundant-and the narcording to our belief, Mr Coleridge rative confused. But surely those might have been—what, according to who cavilled at these things, did not the same belief, he may yet be these consider into whose mouth the poet are matters in regard to which it may has put this ghastly story. A guest be wise to keep silence. We have no is proceeding to a bridal — the sound desire, had we the power, to trouble of the merry music is already in his our readers with any very full exposi- ears—and the light shines clearly tion of our opinions, even concerning from the threshold to guide him to what he has done in poetry. Our the festival. He is arrested on his only wish for the present, is to offer a way by an old man, who constrains few remarks in regard to one or two him to listen-he seizes him by the of his individual productions, which hand-that he shakes free--but the may perhaps excite the attention of old man has a more inevitable spell, such of our readers as have never yet and he holds him, and will not be paid any considerable attention to any silent. of them and this, more particularly, He holds him with his glittering eye, as we have already hinted, with a

The wedding-guest stood still, view to our own countrymen in Scoto And listens like a three-years child : land.

The mariner hath his will.
The longest poem in the collec-
tion of the Sibylline Leaves, is the The wedding guest sat on a stone,
Rime of the Ancient Mariner—and to And thus spake on that ancient man,

He cannot ehuse but hear our feeling, it is by far the most won

The bright-eyed mariner. derful also—the most original and the most touching of all the produc- The bride hath paced into the hall, tions of its author. From it alone, we

Red as a rose is she : are inclined to think an idea of the Nodding their heads before her goes whole poetical genius of Mr Coleridge

The merry minstrelsy. might be gathered, such as could scarcely receive any very important

The wedding-guest he beat his breast, addition either of extent or of dis- And thus spake on that ancient man,

Yet he cannot chuse but hear tinctness, from a perusal of the whole

The bright-eyed mariner. of his other works. To speak of it at all is extremely difficult; above all In the beginning of the mariner's the poems with which we are ac- narrative, the language has all the imquainted in any language-it is a petus of a storm-and when the ship poem to be feli-cherished-mused is suddenly locked among the polar upon—not to be talked about--not ice, the change is as instantaneous as capable of being described—analyzed it is awful. or criticised. It is the wildest of all the creations of genius—it is not The ice was here, the ice was there, like a thing of the living, listening, it cracked and growled, and roared and

The ice was all around : moving world - the very music of

howl'd, its words is like the melancholy Like noises in a swound ! mysterious breath of something sung to the sleeping ear-its images have At length did cross an Albatross : the beauty--the grandeur—the inco- Thorough the fog it came ; herence of some mighty vision.

As if it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God's name. loveliness and the terror glide before us in turns--with, at one moment, the It ate the food it ne'er had eat, awful shadowy dimness—at another, And round and round it flew. the yet more awful distinctness of a The helmsman steer'd us through!.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit; majestic dream.

Dim and shadowy, and incoherent, And a good south wind sprung up behind ; however, though it be-how blind, The Albatross did follow, how wilfully, or how foolishly blind And every day, for food or play, must they have been who refused to Came to the Mariner's hollo! See any meaning, or purpose in the In mist or cloud, or mast or shroud, sale of the Mariner ! The imagery, It perch'd for vespers nine ;

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The

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs white,

Upon the slimy sea. Glimmered the white Moon-shine.

About, about, in reel and rout God save thee, ancient Mariner !

The death-fires danced at night ; From the fiends that plague thee thus ! The water, like a witch's oils, Why look'st thou so ?-With my cross- Burnt green, and blue, and white. bow

Ah ! well a-day! what evil looks I shot the ALBATROSS !

Had I from old and young! All the subsequent miseries of the Instead of the cross, the Albatross crew are represented by the poet as About my neck was hung. having been the consequences of this In the “ weary time” which follows, violation of the charities of sentiment; a spectre-ship sails between them and and these are the same miseries which the “ broad bright sun” in the west. the critics have spoken of, as being This part of the poem is much imcauseless and unmerited! We have no proved in this last edition of it. The difficulty in confessing, that the ideas male and the fernale skeleton in the on which the intent of this poem spectre-ship, or, as they are now called, hinges, and which to us seem to pos- DEATH and LIFE-IN-Death,” have sess all beauty and pathos, may, after diced for the ship's crew-and she, all, have been selected by the poet with the latter, has won the ancient Maria too great neglect of the ordinary ner. These . verses are, we think, sympathies. But if any one will sub- quite new. The second of them is, mit himself to the magic that is around perhaps, the most exquisite in the him, and suffer his senses and his whole poem. imagination to be blended together, the naked hulk alongside came, and exalted by the melody of the And the twain were casting dice; charmed words, and the splendour “ The game is done ! I've won, I've won !” of the unnatural apparitions with Quoth she, and whistles thrice. which the mysterious scene is opened, The Sun's rim dips , the stars rush out : surely he will experience no revulsion At one stride comes the dark ; towards the centre and spirit of this With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, lovely dream. There is the very es. Off shot the spectre-bark. sence of tenderness in the remorseful We listen'd and look'd sideways up! delight with which the Mariner dwells Fear at my heart, as at a cup, upon the image of the “pious bird of My life-blood seem'd to sip! omen good," as it

The stars were dim, and thick the night, Every day, for food or play,

The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd Came to the Mariner's hollo !

white; And the convulsive shudder with From the sails the dews did drip which he narrates the treacherous Till clombe above the eastern bar issue, bespeaks to us no pangs more

The horned Moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip. than seem to have followed justly on that inhospitable crime. It seems as

The crew, who had approved in calm. if the very spirit of the universe had ness the sin that had been committed been stunned by the wanton cruelty in wantonness and madness, die, -and of the Mariner-as if earth, sea,

the Mariner alone is preserved by the and sky, had all become dead and rise of an expiatory feeling in his

mind. Pain, sorrow, remorse,

there stagnant in the extinction of the moving breath of love and gentleness.

are not enough ;-the wound must be All in a hot and copper sky,

healed by a heartfelt sacrifice to the The bloody Sun, at noon,

same spirit of universal love which Right up above the mast did stand,

had been bruised in its infliction. No bigger than the moon.

The moving Moon went up the sky, Day after day, day after day,

And no where did abide : We stuck, nor breath nor motion,

Softly she was going up, As idle as a painted ship

And a star or two beside Upon a painted ocean.

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, Water, water, every where,

Like April hoar-frost spread; And all the boards did shrink;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay, Water, water, every where,

The charmed water burnt alway Nor any drop to drink.

A still and awful red. The very deep did rot: 0 Christ!

Beyond the shadow of the ship, That ever this should be !

I watch'd the water-snakes :

They moved in tracts of shining white, The conclusion has always appeared And when they reared, the elfish light to us to be happy and graceful in the Fell off in hoary flakes.

utmost degree. The actual surface-life Within the shadow of the ship

of the world is brought close into conI watch'd their rich attire :

tact with the life of sentiment the Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

soul that is as much alive, and enjoys, They coiled and swam; and every track

and suffers as much in dreams and via Was a flash of golden fire.

sions of the night as by daylight. happy living things ! no tongue One feels with what a heavy eye the Their beauty might declare :

Ancient Mariner must look and listen A spring of love gusht from my heart,

to the pomps and merry-makingsAnd I blessed them unaware ! Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

even to the innocent enjoyments-of And I blessed them unaware.

those whose experience has only been The self same moment I could pray;

of things tangible. One feels that to

him another world-we do not mean And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank

a supernatural, but a more exquisitely Like lead into the sea.

and deeply natural world—has been It is needless to proceed any longer in revealed--and that the repose of his this, for the principle of the poem is spirit can only be in the contemplation all contained in the last of these ex

of things that are not to pass away. tracts. Had the ballad been more in. The sad and solemn indifference of

his mood is communicated to his hear. terwoven with sources of prolonged emotion extending throughout-and er-and we feel that even after readhad the relation of the imagery to the ing what he had heard, it were better purport and essence of the piece been to “turn from the bridegroom's door.” a little more close-it does not seem O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been to us that any thing more could have Alone on a wide wide sea : been desired in a poem such as this. So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be. As it is, the effect of the wild wandering magnificence of imagination in the sweeter than the marriage-feast, details of the dream-like story is a

'Tis sweeter far to me, thing that cannot be forgotten. It is with a goodly company

To walk together to the kirk as if we had seen real spectres, and To walk together to the kirk, were for ever to be haunted. The

And all together pray, unconnected and fantastic variety of While each to his great Father bends, the images that have been piled up Old men, and babes, and loving friends, fore us works upon the fancy, as an And youths and maidens gay ! evening sky made up of half lurid cas- Farewell

, farewell ! but this I tell tellated clouds half of clear unpollut- To thee, thou Wedding-Guest ! ed azure-would upon the eye. It is He prayeth well, who loveth well like the fitful concert of fine sounds

Both man, and bird, and beast. which the Mariner himself hears af- He prayeth best, who loveth best ter his spirit has been melted, and All things both great and small; the ship has begun to sail homewards.

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun ;

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Slowly the sounds came back again,

Whose beard with age is hoar, Now mixed, now one by one.

Is gone; and now the Wedding-guest Sometimes a-dropping from the sky

Turned from the bridegroom's door. I heard the sky-lark sing ;

He went like one that hath been stunned, Sometimes all little birds that are,

And is of sense forlorn :
How they seem'd to fill the sea and air A SADDER AND A WISER MAN,
With their sweet jargoning !

HE ROSE THE MORROW MORN.-
And now 'twas like all instruments,

Of all the author's productions, the Now like a lonely flute ;

one which seems most akin to the And now it is an angel's song,

Ancient Mariner, is Christabel, a wonThat makes the Heavens be mute. It ceased ; yet still the sails made on

derful piece of poetry, which has been A pleasant noise till noon,

far less understood, and is as yet far less A noise like of a hidden brook a

known than the other. This performIn the leafy month of June,

ance does not make its appearance in That to the sleeping woods all night

the Sibylline Leaves—but we hope Mr Singeth a quict tune.

Coleridge will never omit it in any

be

future collection. The reception it Language is a material which it remet with was no doubt a very dis- quires no little labour to reduce into couraging one, more particularly when beautiful forms,

,-a truth of which the contrasted with the vehement admira- ancients were, above all others, well tion which seems to have been expres- and continually aware. For although sed by all who saw it while yet in vivid ideas naturally suggest happy exMS. Mr Coleridge, however, should pressions, yet the latter are, as it were, remember that the opinions of the few only insulated traits or features, which who saw and admired Christabel then, require much management in the may very well, without any over joining, and the art of the compos weening partiality on his part, be put is seen in the symmetry of the whole into competition with the many who structure. Now, in many respects Mr have derided it since. Those who Coleridge seems too anxious to enjoy know the secret history of the poem, the advantages of an inspired writer, and compare it with the productions and to produce his poetry at once of the most popular poets of our time, in its perfect form like the palaces will have no difficulty in perceiving which spring out of the desert in com-' how deep an impression his remarka- plete splendour at a single rubbing of ble creation had made on the minds the lamp in the Arabian Tale. But of those of his contemporaries, whose carefulness above all is necessary to a approbation was most deserving to be poet in these latter days, when the oran object of ambition with such a man dinary medium through which things as Mr Coleridge.

are viewed is so very far from being Christabel, as our readers are aware, poetical and when the natural strain is only a fragment, and had been in of scarcely any man's associations can existence for many years antecedent be expected to be of that sort which is to the time of its publication. Nei- most akin to high and poetical feeling. ther has the author assigned any rea

There is no question there are many, son either for the long delay of its ap- very many passages in the poetry of pearance-or for the imperfect state in this writer, which shew what excelwhich he has at last suffered it to ap- lent things may be done under the pear. In all probability he had waited impulse of a happy moment-paslong in the hope of being able to finish sages in which the language-above all it to his satisfaction ; but finding that things has such aërial graces he was never revisited by a mood suf- would have been utterly beyond the ficiently genial-he determined to let reach of any person who might have the piece be printed as it was. It is attempted to produce the like, without not in the history of Christabel alone being able to lift his spirit into the that we have seen reason to suspect same ecstatic mood. It is not to be Mr Coleridge of being by far too pas- denied, however, that among the sive in his notions concerning the whole of his poems there are only a mode in which a poet ought to deal few in the composition of which he with his muse.

It is very true, that seems to have been blessed all throughthe best conceptions and designs are

out with the same sustaining energy of frequently those which occur to a man

afflatus. The Mariner-we need not of fine talents, without having been say--is one of these. The poem Love painfully sought after: but the exer- is another-and were Christabel comtion of the Will is always necessary pleted as has been begun, we doubt in the worthy execution of them. It be- not it would be allowed by all who are hoves a poet, like any other artist, after capable of tasting the merits of such he has fairly conceived the idea of his poetry, to be a third-and, perhaps, piece, to set about realising it in good the most splendid of the three. earnest, and to use his most perseve- It is impossible to gather from the ring attention in considering how all part which has been published any its parts are to be adapted and con- conception of what is the meditated joined. It does not appear that even conclusion of the story of Christabel. the language of a poem can arise spon- Incidents can never be fairly judged taneously throughout like a strain of of till we know what they lead to. music, any more than the colours of Of those which occur in the first and the painter will go and arrange them- second cantos of this poem, there is selves on his canvass, while he is no doubt many appear at present very musing on the subject in another room. strange and disagreeable, and the

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sooner the remainder comes forth to long-estranged friend of his youth, explain them, the better. One thing Sir Roland De Vaux of Triermaine, is evident, that no man need sit down is some evil being; whether demon to read Christabel with any prospect or only demon-visited, we have no of gratification, whose mind has not means to ascertain. Nothing can be rejoiced habitually in the luxury of finer than the description of the manvisionary and superstitious reveries. He ner in which this strange visitant is that is determined to try every thing first introduced. by the standard of what is called com

The night is chill; the forest bare ; mon sense, and who has an aversion Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? to admit, even in poetry, of the exist- There is not wind enough in the air ence of things more than are dreamţ To move away the ringlet curl of in philosophy, had better not open from the lovely lady's cheek. this production, which is only proper There is not wind enough to twirl for a solitary couch and a midnight The one red leaf, the last of its clan, taper. Mr Coleridge is the prince of That dances as often as dance it can, superstitious poets, and he that does Hanging so light, and hanging so high, not read Christabel with a strange and

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. harrowing feeling of mysterious dread, Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! may be assured that his soul is made Jesu, Maria, shield her well !

She folded her arms beneath her cloak, of impenetrable stuff.

And stole to the other side of the oak. The circumstances with which the

What sees she there? poem opens are admirably conceived. There she sees a damsel bright, There is in all the images introduced Drest in a silken robe of white; a certain fearful stillness and ominous Her neck, her feet, her arms were bare, meaning, the effect of which can never And the jewels disorder'd in her hair. be forgotten. The language, also, is I guess, 'twas frightful there to see so much in harmony with the rude era

A lady so richly clad as she of the tale, that it seems scarcely to have

Beautiful exceedingly! been written in the present age, and Mary mother, save me now ! is indeed a wonderful proof of what (Said Christabel,) And who art thou ? genius can effect, in defiance of unfa. The lady strange made answer meet, vourable associations. Whoever has

And her voice was faint and sweet : had his mind penetrated with the true I scarce can speak for weariness.

Have pity on my sore distress, expression of a Gothic building, will Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear, find a similar impression conveyed by (Said Christabel,) How cam'st thou here? the vein of language employed in this And the lady, whose voice was faint and legend. The manners, also, and forms sweet, of courtesy ascribed to the personages, Did thus pursue her answer meet : are full of solemn grace.

My sire is of a noble line, -He kissed her forehead as he spake ; And my name is Geraldine. And Geraldine, in maiden wise,

Five warriors seiz'd me yestermorn, Casting down her large bright eyes,

Me, even me, a maid forlorn : With blushing cheek and courtesy fine, They chok'd my cries with force and fright, Turned her from Sir Leoline;

And tied me on a palfrey white. Softly gathering up her train,

The palfrey was as fleet as wind, That o'er her right arm fell again,

And they rode furiously behind. And folded her arms across her chest, They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white; And couched her head upon her breast. And once we cross'd the shade of night. This is only one little example of I have no thought what men they be ;

As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, the antique stateliness that breathes Nor do I know how

long it is over the whole of their demeanour. (For I have lain in fits, I wis) But if these things are not perceived Since one, the tallest of the five, by the reader, it is altogether in vain Took me from the palfrey's back, to point them out to him.

A weary woman, scarce alive. The general import of the poem Some matter'd words his comrades spoke ; cannot yet be guessed at; but it is

He plac'd me underneath this oak, evident that the mysterious lady whom He swore they would retum with haste; Christabel meets in the forest--whom I thought I heard, some minutes past,

Whither they went I cannot tellshe introduces by stealth into the cas- Sounds as of a castle bell. tle of her father--and in whom her Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she), father recognizes the daughter of the And help a wretched maid to fee. Vol. VI.

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