51

Whate'er thou giv'st, it still is sweet to me,ForstillI find it redolent of thee.

1833, 4. Now first published from an MS.

Νήπιοι οὐδὲ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον πλέον ἥμισυ πάντος.

Hesiod.[Works and Days, l. 40.]

What a spring-tide of Love to dear friends in a shoal!Half of it to one were worth double the whole!

Undated. First published inP. W., 1834.

I stand alone, nor tho' my heart should break,Have I, to whom I may complain or speak.Here I stand, a hopeless man and sad,Who hoped to have seen my Love, my Life.And strange it were indeed, could I be gladRemembering her, my soul's betrothéd wife.For in this world no creature that has lifeWas e'er to me so gracious and so good.Her loss is to my Heart, like the Heart's blood.

? S. T. C. Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893. These lines are inscribed on a fly-leaf of Tom. II of Benedetto Menzini'sPoesie, 1782.

The Sun with gentle beams his rage disguises,And, like aspiring Tyrants, temporises—Never to be endured but when he falls or rises.

? S. T. C. Undated. Now first published from an MS.

Thicker than rain-drops on November thorn.

Undated. Now first published from an MS.

His native accents to her stranger's ear,Skill'd in the tongues of France and Italy—Or while she warbles with bright eyes upraised,Her fingers shoot like streams of silver lightAmid the golden haze of thrilling strings.

Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.

Each crime that once estranges from the virtuesDoth make the memory of their features dailyMore dim and vague, till each coarse counterfeitCan have the passport to our confidenceSign'd by ourselves. And fitly are they punish'dWho prize and seek the honest man but asA safer lock to guard dishonest treasures.

? S. T. C. Undated. First published inLit. Rem., i. 281. First collectedP. and D. W., 1877, ii. 365.

Where'er I find the Good, the True, the Fair,I ask no names—God's spirit dwelleth there!The unconfounded, undivided Three,Each for itself, and all in each, to seeIn man and Nature, is Philosophy.

Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.

A wind that with Aurora hath abidingAmong the Arabian and the Persian Hills.

Undated. First published from an MS. in 1893.

I [S. T. C.] find the following lines among my papers, in my own writing, but whether an unfinished fragment, or a contribution to some friend's production, I know not:—

What boots to tell how o'er his graveShe wept, that would have died to save;Little they know the heart, who deemHer sorrow but an infant's dreamOf transient love begotten;A passing gale, that as it blowsJust shakes the ripe drop from the rose—That dies and is forgotten.[1012]O Woman! nurse of hopes and fears,All lovely in thy spring of years,Thy soul in blameless mirth possessing,Most lovely in affliction's tears,More lovely still than tears suppressing.

Undated. First published in Allsop'sLetters, Conversations, &c. First collectedP. and D. W., 1877, ii. 373.

Though friendships differ endlessin degree,Thesorts, methinks, may be reduced to three.Acquaintance many, andConquaintance few;But forInquaintance I know only two—The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!

My dear Gillman—The ground andmatérielof this division of one's friends intoac,conandinquaintance, was given by Hartley Coleridge when he was scarcely five years old [1801]. On some one asking him if Anny Sealy (a little girl he went to school with) was an acquaintance of his, he replied, very fervently pressing his right hand on his heart, 'No, she is aninquaintance!' 'Well! 'tis a father's tale'; and the recollection soothes your old friend andinquaintance,

S. T. Coleridge.

Undated. First published inFraser's Magazinefor Jan. 1835, Art.Coleridgeiana, p. 54. First collected 1893.

If fair by NatureShe honours the fair Boon with fair adorning,And graces that bespeak a gracious breeding,Can gracious Nature lessen Nature's Graces?If taught by both she betters both and honoursFair gifts with fair adorning, know you notThere is a beauty that resides within;—A fine and delicate spirit of womanhoodOf inward birth?—

Now first published from an MS.

In the cornerone—I spy Love!In the cornerNone,I spy Love.

1826. Now first published from an MS.

As the shy hind, the soft-eyed gentle BruteNow moves, now stops, approaches by degrees—At length emerges from the shelt'ring Trees,Lur'd by her Hunter with the Shepherd's flute,Whose music travelling on the twilight breeze,When all besides was mute—She oft had heard, and ever lov'd to hear;She fearful Beast! but that no sound of Fear——

Undated. Now first published from an MS.

For ever in the world of FameWe live and yet abide the same:Clouds may intercept our rays,Or desert Lands reflect our blaze.The beauteous Month of May began,And all was Mirth and Sport,When Baron Guelph of AdelstanTook leave and left the Court.From Fête and Rout and Opera farThe full town he forsook,And changed his wand and golden starFor Shepherd's Crown and Crook.The knotted net of light and shadeBeneath the budding tree,A sweeter day-bed for him madeThan Couch and Canopy.In copse or lane, as Choice or ChanceMight lead him was he seen;And join'd at eve the village danceUpon the village green.Nor endless—

For ever in the world of FameWe live and yet abide the same:Clouds may intercept our rays,Or desert Lands reflect our blaze.

The beauteous Month of May began,And all was Mirth and Sport,When Baron Guelph of AdelstanTook leave and left the Court.

From Fête and Rout and Opera farThe full town he forsook,And changed his wand and golden starFor Shepherd's Crown and Crook.

The knotted net of light and shadeBeneath the budding tree,A sweeter day-bed for him madeThan Couch and Canopy.

In copse or lane, as Choice or ChanceMight lead him was he seen;And join'd at eve the village danceUpon the village green.

Nor endless—

Undated. Now first published from an MS.

[996:1]The following 'Fragments', numbered 1-63, consist of a few translations and versicles inserted by Coleridge in his various prose works, and a larger number of fragments, properly so called, which were published from MS. sources in 1893, or are now published for the first time. These fragments are taken exclusively from Coleridge's Notebooks (the source ofAnima Poetæ, 1895), and were collected, transcribed, and dated by the present Editor for publication in 1893. The fragments now published for the first time were either not used by J. D. Campbell in 1893, or had not been discovered or transcribed. The very slight emendations of the text are due to the fact that Mr. Campbell printed from copies, and that the collection as a whole has now for the second time been collated with the original MSS. Fragments numbered 64, 96, 98, 111, 113, inP. W., 1893, are quotations from the plays and poems of William Cartwright (1611-1643). They are not included in the present issue. Fragments 56, 58, 59, 61, 63, 67, 80, 81, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94, 117-120, are inserted in the text or among 'Jeux d'Esprit', or under other headings. The chronological order is for the most part conjectural, and differs from that suggested in 1893. It must be borne in mind that the entries in Coleridge's Notebooks are not continuous, and that the additional matter in prose or verse was inserted from time to time, wherever a page or half a page was not filled up. It follows that the context is an uncertain guide to the date of any given entry. Pains have been taken to exclude quotations from older writers, which Coleridge neither claimed nor intended to claim for his own, but it is possible that two or three of these fragments of verse are not original.

[996:2]This quatrain, described as 'The concluding stanza of an Elegy on a Lady who died in Early Youth', is from part of a memorandum in S. T. C.'s handwriting headed 'Relics of my School-boy Muse; i. e. fragments of poems composed before my fifteenth year'. It followsFirst Advent of Love, 'O fair is Love's first hope,' &c. (videante, p. 443), and is compared with Age—a stanza written forty years later than the preceding—'Dewdrops are the gems of morning,' &c. (p. 440).Another Version.O'er her piled grave the gale of evening sighs,And flowers will grow upon its grassy slope,I wipe the dimming waters from mine eyeEven on the cold grave dwells the Cherub Hope.Unpublished Letter to Thomas Poole, Feb. 1. 1801, on the death of Mrs. Robinson ('Perdita').

Another Version.

O'er her piled grave the gale of evening sighs,And flowers will grow upon its grassy slope,I wipe the dimming waters from mine eyeEven on the cold grave dwells the Cherub Hope.

Unpublished Letter to Thomas Poole, Feb. 1. 1801, on the death of Mrs. Robinson ('Perdita').

[997:1]These two lines, slightly altered, were afterwards included inAlice du Clos(ll. 111, 112),ante, p. 473.

[998:1]The lines are an attempt to reduce to blank verse one of many minute descriptions of natural objects and scenic effects. The concluding lines are illegible.

[1001:1]These lines, 'slip torn from some old letter,' are endorsed by Poole, 'Reply of Coleridge on my urging him to exert himself.' First collected in 1893.

[1007:1]The translation is embodied in a marginal note on the following quotation fromThe Select Discoursesby John Smith, 1660:—'So the Sibyl was noted by Heraclitus asμαινομένῳ στόματι γελαστὰ καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα φθεγγομένη,as one speaking ridiculous and unseemly speeches with her furious mouth.' The fragment is misquoted and misunderstood: forγελαστά, etc. should beἀμύρισταunperfumed, inornate lays, not redolent of art.—Render it thus:Not her's, etc.Στόματι μαινομένῳis 'with ecstatic mouth'.J. D. Campbell in a note to this Fragment (P. W., 1893, pp. 464-5) quotes the 'following prose translation of the same passage', from Coleridge'sStatesman's Manual(1816, p. 132); 'Multiscience (or a variety and quantity of acquired knowledge) does not test intelligence. But the Sibyll with wild enthusiastic mirth shrilling forth unmirthful, inornate and unperfumed truths, reaches to a thousand years with her voice through the power of God.'The prose translation is an amalgam of two fragments. The first sentence is quoted by Diogenes Laertius, ix. 1: the second by Plutarch, de Pyth. orac. 6, p. 377.

[1007:1]The translation is embodied in a marginal note on the following quotation fromThe Select Discoursesby John Smith, 1660:—

'So the Sibyl was noted by Heraclitus asμαινομένῳ στόματι γελαστὰ καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα φθεγγομένη,as one speaking ridiculous and unseemly speeches with her furious mouth.' The fragment is misquoted and misunderstood: forγελαστά, etc. should beἀμύρισταunperfumed, inornate lays, not redolent of art.—Render it thus:

Not her's, etc.Στόματι μαινομένῳis 'with ecstatic mouth'.

J. D. Campbell in a note to this Fragment (P. W., 1893, pp. 464-5) quotes the 'following prose translation of the same passage', from Coleridge'sStatesman's Manual(1816, p. 132); 'Multiscience (or a variety and quantity of acquired knowledge) does not test intelligence. But the Sibyll with wild enthusiastic mirth shrilling forth unmirthful, inornate and unperfumed truths, reaches to a thousand years with her voice through the power of God.'

The prose translation is an amalgam of two fragments. The first sentence is quoted by Diogenes Laertius, ix. 1: the second by Plutarch, de Pyth. orac. 6, p. 377.

[1009:1]These rhymes were addressed to a Miss Eliza Nixon, who supplied S. T. C. with books from a lending library.

I heard a voice pealing loud triumph to-day:The voice of the Triumph, O Freedom, was thine!Sumptuous Tyranny challeng'd the fray,[1014:2]'Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.'Whose could the Triumph be Freedom but thine?Stars of the Heaven shine to feed thee;Hush'd are the Whirl-blasts and heed thee;—By her depth, by her height, Nature swears thou art mine!

1. Amphibrach tetrameter catalectic˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯

2. Ditto.

3. Three pseudo amphimacers, and one long syllable.

4. Two dactyls, and one perfect Amphimacer.

5. = 1 and 2.

6.¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘|

7.¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘|

8.¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ¯, ¯ ˘ ¯, ¯ ˘ ¯

1801. Now first published from an MS.

Thus she said, and, all around,Her diviner spirit, gan to borrow;Earthly Hearings hear unearthly sound,Hearts heroic faint, and sink aswound.Welcome, welcome, spite of pain and sorrow,Love to-day, and Thought to-morrow.

1801. Now first published from an MS.

(i. e.antispastic Catalectic)

Bĕnīgn shōōtĭng stārs, ĕcstātīc dĕlīght.

The Lord's throne in Heaven ămīd āngĕl troopsAmid troops of Angels God throned on high.

1801. Now first published from an MS.

No cold shall thee benumb,Nor darkness stain thy sight;To thee new Heat, new LightShall from this object come,Whose Praises if thou now wilt sound aright,My Pen shall give thee leave hereafter to be dumb.

1801. Now first published from an MS.

Sing impassionate Soul! of Mohammed the complicate story:Sing, unfearful of Man, groaning and ending in care.Short the Command and the Toil, but endlessly mighty the Glory!Standing aloof if it chance, vainly our enemy's scare:What tho' we wretchedly fare, wearily drawing the Breath—,Malice in wonder may stare; merrily move we to Death.

Now first published from an MS.

Go little Pipe! for ever I must leave thee,Ah, vainly true!Never, ah never! must I more receive thee?Adieu! adieu!Well, thou art gone! and what remains behind,Soothing the soul to Hope?The moaning Wind—Hide with sere leaves my Grave's undaisied Slope.

(?) October. 1814.

[It would be better to alter this metre—

10´ 6` 6´ 10` | 11´ 4` 11´ 4`:

and still more plaintive if the 1st and 4th were 11´ 11´ as well as the 5th and 7th.]

Now first published from an MS.

When thy Beauty appears,In its graces and airs,All bright as an Angel new dight from the Sky,At distance I gaze, and am awed by my fears,So strangely you dazzle my Eye.

Now first published from an MS.

Ye fowls of ill presage,Go vanish into Night!Let all things sweet and fairYield homage to the pair:From Infancy to AgeEach Brow be smooth and bright,As Lake in evening light.To-day be Joy! and SorrowDevoid of Blame(The widow'd Dame)Shall welcome be to-morrow.Thou, too, dull Night! may'st come unchid:This wall of Flame the Dark hath hidWith turrets each a Pyramid;—For the Tears that we shed, are Gladness,A mockery of Sadness!

Now first published from an MS.

There in some darksome shadeMethinks I'd weepMyself asleep,And there forgotten fade.

First published from an MS. in 1893.

Once again, sweet Willow, wave thee!Why stays my Love?Bend, and in yon streamlet—lave thee!Why stays my Love?Oft have I at evening straying,Stood, thy branches long surveying,Graceful in the light breeze playing,—Why stays my Love?

1. Four Trochees /.

2. One spondee, Iambic \.

3. Four Trochees 1.

4. Repeated from 2.

5, 6, 7. A triplet of 4 Trochees—8 repeated.

First published from an MS. in 1893.

¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘,¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘˘ ¯ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘˘ ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘etc.

Songs of Shepherds and rustical Roundelays,Forms of Fancies and whistled on Reeds,Songs to solace young Nymphs upon HolidaysAre too unworthy for wonderful deeds—[1019]Round about, hornédLucinda they swarméd,And her they informéd,How minded they were,Each God and Goddess,To take human BodiesAs Lords and Ladies to follow the Hare.

Now first published from an MS.

Curious instance of casual metre and rhyme in a prose narrative (The Life of Jerome of Prague). The metre is Amphibrach dimeter Catalectic˘ ¯ ˘|˘ ¯, and the rhymes antistrophic.

Then Jerome did callaFrom his flame-pointed Fence;bWhich under he trod,cAs upward to mountdFrom the fiery flood,—e'I summon you all,aA hundred years hence,bTo appear before God,cTo give an accountdOf my innocent blood!'e

Then Jerome did callaFrom his flame-pointed Fence;bWhich under he trod,cAs upward to mountdFrom the fiery flood,—e

'I summon you all,aA hundred years hence,bTo appear before God,cTo give an accountdOf my innocent blood!'e

July 7, 1826. Now first published from an MS.

1. I think most ears would take these as anapaestic throughout. But the introduction of Milton's

Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine

as aleit-motivis of the first interest.

Description of it, l. 4, very curious. I should have thought no one could have run 'drunk with wine' together as one foot.

2. Admirable! I hardly know better trochaics.

3. Very interesting: but the terminology odd. The dochmius, a five-syllabled foot, is (inoneform—there are about thirty!) an antispast˘ ¯ ¯ ˘plusa syllable. Catalectic means (properly)minusa syllable. But the verses as quantified are really dochmiac, and the onlyattempts I have seen. Shall I own I can't get anyEnglishRhythm on them?

4. More ordinary: but a good arrangement and wonderful for the date.

5. Not nonsense at all: but, metrically, really his usual elegiac.

6. This,if early, is almost priceless. It is not only lovely in itself, but an obvious attempt to recover the zig-zag outline and varied cadence of seventeenth century born—the things that Shelley to some extent, Beddoes and Darley more, and Tennyson and Browning most were to master. I subscribe (most humbly) to his suggestions, especially his second.

7. Very like some late seventeenth-century (Dryden time) motives and aleetle'Moorish'.

8. Like 6, and charming.

9. A sort of recurrence toPindaric—again pioneer, as the soul of S. T. C.hadto be always.

10 and 11. Ditto.

13. Again,Ishould say, anapaestic—but this anapaest and amphibrach quarrel isἄσπονδος.

[1014:1]'He attributed in part, his writing so little, to the extreme care and labour which he applied in elaborating his metres. He said that when he was intent on a new experiment in metre, the time and labour he bestowed were inconceivable; that he was quite an epicure in sound.'—Wordsworth on Coleridge (as reported by Mr. Justice Coleridge),Memoirs of W. Wordsworth, 1851, ii. 306.In a letter to Poole dated March 16, 1801, Coleridge writes: 'I shall . . . immediately publish myChristabel, with the Essays on the "Preternatural", and on Metre' (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i. 349). Something had been done towards the collection of materials for the first 'Essay', a great deal for the second. In a notebook (No. 22) which contains dated entries of 1805, 1815, &c., but of which the greater portion, as the context and various handwritings indicate, belongs to a much earlier date, there are some forty-eight numbered specimens of various metres derived from German and Italian sources. To some of these stanzas or strophes a metrical scheme with original variants is attached, whilst other schemes are exemplified by metrical experiments in English, headed 'Nonsense Verses'. Two specimens of these experiments, headed 'A Sunset' and 'What is Life', are included in the text ofP. W., 1893 (pp. 172, 178), and in that of the present issue, pp. 393, 394. They are dated 1805 in accordance with the dates of Coleridge's own comments or afterthoughts, but it is almost certain that both sets of verses were composed in 1801. The stanza entitled 'An Angel Visitant' belongs to the same period. Ten other sets of 'Nonsense Verses' of uncertain but early date are now printed for the first time.

In a letter to Poole dated March 16, 1801, Coleridge writes: 'I shall . . . immediately publish myChristabel, with the Essays on the "Preternatural", and on Metre' (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i. 349). Something had been done towards the collection of materials for the first 'Essay', a great deal for the second. In a notebook (No. 22) which contains dated entries of 1805, 1815, &c., but of which the greater portion, as the context and various handwritings indicate, belongs to a much earlier date, there are some forty-eight numbered specimens of various metres derived from German and Italian sources. To some of these stanzas or strophes a metrical scheme with original variants is attached, whilst other schemes are exemplified by metrical experiments in English, headed 'Nonsense Verses'. Two specimens of these experiments, headed 'A Sunset' and 'What is Life', are included in the text ofP. W., 1893 (pp. 172, 178), and in that of the present issue, pp. 393, 394. They are dated 1805 in accordance with the dates of Coleridge's own comments or afterthoughts, but it is almost certain that both sets of verses were composed in 1801. The stanza entitled 'An Angel Visitant' belongs to the same period. Ten other sets of 'Nonsense Verses' of uncertain but early date are now printed for the first time.

[1014:2]Sumptuous Tyranny floating this way. [MS.] On p. 17 of Notebook 22 Coleridge writes:—¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘, ¯Drunk with I—dolatry—drunk with, Wine.A noble metre if I can find a metre to precede or follow.Sūmptŭŏus Dālĭlă flōatĭng thŭs wāyDrunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.Both lines are from Milton'sSamson Agonistes.

[1014:2]Sumptuous Tyranny floating this way. [MS.] On p. 17 of Notebook 22 Coleridge writes:—

¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘, ¯Drunk with I—dolatry—drunk with, Wine.

A noble metre if I can find a metre to precede or follow.

Sūmptŭŏus Dālĭlă flōatĭng thŭs wāyDrunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.

Both lines are from Milton'sSamson Agonistes.

[Videante, p. 100]

Clevedon, August 20th, 1795.[1021:1]

(First Draft)

My pensiveSara! thy soft Cheek reclin'dThus on my arm, how soothing sweet it isBeside our Cot to sit, our Cot o'ergrownWith white-flowr'd Jasmine and the blossom'd myrtle,(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)5And watch the Clouds, that late were rich with light,Slow-sad'ning round, and mark the star of eveSerenely brilliant, like thy polish'd Sense,Shine opposite! What snatches of perfumeThe noiseless gale from yonder bean-field wafts!10The stilly murmur of the far-off SeaTells us of Silence! and behold, my love!In the half-closed window we will place the Harp,Which by the desultory Breeze caress'd,Like some coy maid half willing to be woo'd,15Utters such sweet upbraidings as, perforce,Tempt to repeat the wrong!

[M. R.]

(Second Draft)

My pensiveSara! thy soft Cheek reclin'dThus on my arm, most soothing sweet it isTo sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrownWith white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)5And watch the Clouds that, late were rich with light,Slow-sadd'ning round, and mark the Star of eve[1022]Serenely brilliant (such shouldWisdombe!)Shine opposite. How exquisite the ScentsSnatch'd from yon Bean-field! And the worldsohush'd!10The stilly murmur of the far-off SeaTells us of Silence! And that simplest LutePlac'd lengthways in the clasping casement, hark!How by the desultory Breeze caress'd(Like some coy Maid half-yielding to her Lover)15It pours such sweet Upbraidings, as must needsTempt to repeat the wrong. And now it's stringsBoldlier swept, the long sequacious notesOver delicious Surges sink and riseIn aëry voyage, Music such as erst20Round rosy bowers (so Legendaries tell)To sleeping Maids came floating witchinglyBy wand'ring West winds stoln from Faery land;Where on some magic HyblaMelodiesRound many a newborn honey-dropping Flower25Footless and wild, like Birds of Paradise,Nor pause nor perch, warbling on untir'd wing.And thus, my Love! as on the midway SlopeOf yonder Hill I stretch my limbs at noonAnd tranquil muse upon Tranquillity.30Full many a Thought uncall'd and undetain'dAnd many idle flitting PhantasiesTraverse my indolent and passive MindAs wild, as various, as the random GalesThat swell or flutter on this subject Lute.35And what if All of animated LifeBe but as Instruments diversly fram'dThat tremble into thought, while thro' them breathesOne infinite and intellectual Breeze,And all in diff'rent Heights so aptly hung,40That Murmurs indistinct and Bursts sublime,Shrill Discords and most soothing Melodies,Harmonious from Creation's vast concent—ThusGodwould be the universal Soul,[1023]Mechaniz'd matter as th' organic harps45And each one's Tunes be that, which each calls I.But thy more serious Look a mild ReproofDarts, O beloved Woman, and thy wordsPious and calm check these unhallow'd Thoughts,These Shapings of the unregen'rate Soul,50Bubbles, that glitter as they rise and breakOn vain Philosophy's aye-babbling Spring:Thou biddest me walk humbly with my God!Meek Daughter in the family of Christ.Wisely thou sayest, and holy are thy words!55Nor may I unblam'd or speak or think of Him,Th'Incomprehensible! save when with AweI praise him, and with Faith that inly feels,Who with his saving Mercies healèd me,A sinful and most miserable man60Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possessPeaceand thisCot, andThee, my best-belov'd!

And thus, my Love! as on the midway SlopeOf yonder Hill I stretch my limbs at noonAnd tranquil muse upon Tranquillity.30Full many a Thought uncall'd and undetain'dAnd many idle flitting PhantasiesTraverse my indolent and passive MindAs wild, as various, as the random GalesThat swell or flutter on this subject Lute.35And what if All of animated LifeBe but as Instruments diversly fram'dThat tremble into thought, while thro' them breathesOne infinite and intellectual Breeze,And all in diff'rent Heights so aptly hung,40That Murmurs indistinct and Bursts sublime,Shrill Discords and most soothing Melodies,Harmonious from Creation's vast concent—ThusGodwould be the universal Soul,[1023]Mechaniz'd matter as th' organic harps45And each one's Tunes be that, which each calls I.

But thy more serious Look a mild ReproofDarts, O beloved Woman, and thy wordsPious and calm check these unhallow'd Thoughts,These Shapings of the unregen'rate Soul,50Bubbles, that glitter as they rise and breakOn vain Philosophy's aye-babbling Spring:Thou biddest me walk humbly with my God!Meek Daughter in the family of Christ.Wisely thou sayest, and holy are thy words!55Nor may I unblam'd or speak or think of Him,Th'Incomprehensible! save when with AweI praise him, and with Faith that inly feels,Who with his saving Mercies healèd me,A sinful and most miserable man60Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possessPeaceand thisCot, andThee, my best-belov'd!

[MS. R.]

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