N

Donna, siam rei di morte. Errasti, errai;Di perdon non son degni i nostri errori,Tu che avventasti in me sì fieri ardoriIo che le fiamme a sì bel sol furai.

Io che una fiera rigida adorai,5Tu che fosti sord' aspra a' miei dolori;Tu nell' ire ostinata, io negli amori:Tu pur troppo sdegnasti, io troppo amai.Or la pena laggiù nel cieco AvernoPari al fallo n'aspetta. Arderà poi,10Chi visse in foco, in vivo foco eterno.Quivi: se Amor fia giusto, amboduo noi,All' incendio dannati, avrem l' inferno,Tu nel mio core, ed io negli occhi tuoi.

Io che una fiera rigida adorai,5Tu che fosti sord' aspra a' miei dolori;Tu nell' ire ostinata, io negli amori:Tu pur troppo sdegnasti, io troppo amai.

Or la pena laggiù nel cieco AvernoPari al fallo n'aspetta. Arderà poi,10Chi visse in foco, in vivo foco eterno.

Quivi: se Amor fia giusto, amboduo noi,All' incendio dannati, avrem l' inferno,Tu nel mio core, ed io negli occhi tuoi.

The Italian original is printed in the Notes toP. W., 1893, p. 632.

[Videante, p. 409]

In diesem Wald, in diesen GründenHerrscht nichts, als Freyheit, Lust und Ruh.Hier sagen wir der Liebe zu,Im dichtsten Schatten uns zu finden:Da find' ich dich, mich findest du.5

The German original is translated from an MS. Notebook of ? 1801.

[Videante, p. 414]

Κοινῇ πὰρ κλισίῃ ληθαργικὸς ἠδὲ φρενοπλὴξκείμενοι, ἀλλήλων νοῦσον ἀπεσκέδασαν.ἐξέθορε κλίνης γὰρ ὁ τολμήεις ὑπὸ λύσσης,καὶ τὸν ἀναίσθητον παντὸς ἔτυπτε μέλους.πληγαὶ δ' ἀμφοτέροις ἐγένοντ' ἄκος, αἷς ὁ μὲν αὐτῶν5ἔγρετο, τὸν δ' ὕπνῳ πουλὺς ἔριψε κόπος.

Anthologia Græca, Lib. 1, Cap. 45.

See Lessing's 'Zerstreute Anmerkungen über das Epigramm',Sämmtliche Werke, 1824, ii. 22.

[Videante, p. 427]

Fede, Speranza, Carità.

Fede.

Canti terreni amoriChi terreno hà il pensier, terreno il zelo;Noi Celesti Virtù cantiam del Cielo.

Carità.

Mà chi fia, che vi ascoltiFuggirà i nostri accenti orecchia piena5De le lusinghe di mortal Sirena?

Speranza.

Cantiam pur, che raccoltiSaran ben in virtù di chi li move;E suoneran nel Ciel, se non altrove.

Fe. Sp. Ca.

Spirane dunque, eterno Padre, il canto,10Che già festi al gran Cantor Ebreo,Che poi tant' alto feoSuonar la gloria del tuo nomine santo.

Ca. Fe.

Noi siam al Ciel rapiteE pur lo star in terra è nostra cura,15A ricondur à Dio l' alme smarrite.

Fe. Sp.

Così facciamo, e 'n questa valle oscuraL' una sia scorta al sol d' l' intelletto,L' altra sostegno al vacillante affetto.

Ca.

E com' è senz' amor l' anima viva?20

Sp. Fe.

Come stemprata cetra,Che suona sì, mà di concento priva.

Ca. Sp.

Amor' è quel, ch' ogni gran dono impetra.

Fe.

Mà tempo è, che le gentiOdan l' alta virtù de' nostri accenti.25

Fe. Sp. Ca.

O mondo—eco la via;Chi vuol salir' al Ciel, creda, ami, e spetti.O félici pensieriDi chi, per far in Dio santa armoniaE per ogn' altro suon l'anima hà sorda,30Fede, Speranza, eCaritateaccenda.Il Pastor FidoCon le RimedelSignor CavalierBattista GuariniIn Amstelodami

O mondo—eco la via;Chi vuol salir' al Ciel, creda, ami, e spetti.O félici pensieriDi chi, per far in Dio santa armoniaE per ogn' altro suon l'anima hà sorda,30Fede, Speranza, eCaritateaccenda.

Il Pastor Fido

Con le RimedelSignor CavalierBattista GuariniIn Amstelodami

Madrigali 138, 139.

1663 or 9.

[Videante, p. 435]

'An das Meer.'

Der blinde Sänger stand am Meer,Die Wogen rauschten um ihn her,Und Riesenthaten goldner ZeitUmrauschten ihn im Feierkleid.Es kam zu ihm auf Schwanenschwung5Melodisch die Begeisterung,Und Iliad und OdysseeEntsteigen mit Gesang der See.

Der blinde Sänger stand am Meer,Die Wogen rauschten um ihn her,Und Riesenthaten goldner ZeitUmrauschten ihn im Feierkleid.

Es kam zu ihm auf Schwanenschwung5Melodisch die Begeisterung,Und Iliad und OdysseeEntsteigen mit Gesang der See.

The German original is printed in the Notes toP. W., 1893, p. 639. See, too, Prefatory Memoir to the Tauchnitz edition of Coleridge'sPoems, by P. Freiligrath (1852).

The /Fall/ of /Robespierre. / An /Historic Drama. / ByS. T. Coleridge, / Of Jesus College, Cambridge. /Cambridge: / Printed by Benjamin Flower, / For W. H. Lunn, and J. and J. Merrill; and Sold / By J. March, Norwich. / 1794. / [Price One Shilling.]

[8o.

Collation.—Title, one leaf, p. [i], [Dedication] To H. Martin,Esq., Of Jesus College, Cambridge (dated, September 22. 1794), p. [3]; Text, pp. [5]-37.

Poems/ on /Various Subjects, /ByS. T. Coleridge, / Late of Jesus College, Cambridge. / Felix curarum, cui non Heliconia cordi / Serta, nec imbelles Parnassi e vertice laurus! / Sed viget ingenium, et magnos accinctus in usus / Fert animus quascunque vices.—Nos tristia vitae / Solamur cantu. /Stat.Silv.Lib. iv. 4.[1135:1]/London: / Printed for G. G. and J. Robinsons, and / J. Cottle, Bookseller, Bristol. / 1796. /

[8o.

Collation.—Half-title, Poems / on Various Subjects, / By / S. T. Coleridge, / Late / Of Jesus College, Cambridge. /, one leaf, p. [i]; Title, one leaf, p. [iii]; Preface, pp. [v]-xi; Contents, pp. [xiii]-xvi; Text, pp. [1]-168; Notes onReligious Musings, pp. [169]-175; Notes, pp. [177]-188; Errata, p. [189].[1135:2]

Contents.—

Poems on various subjects written at different times and prompted by very different feelings; but which will be read at one time and under the influence of one set of feelings—this is an heavy disadvantage: for we love or admire a poet in proportion as he developes our own sentiments and emotions, or reminds us of our own knowledge.

Compositions resembling those of the present volume are not unfrequently condemned for their querulous egotism. But egotism is to becondemned then only when it offends against time and place, as in an History or an Epic Poem. To censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almost as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets or Monodies? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else could. After the more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demands solace and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late sufferings it can endure no employment not connected with those sufferings. Forcibly to turn away our attention to other subjects is a painful and in general an unavailing effort.

"But O how grateful to a wounded heartThe tale of misery to impart;From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flowAnd raise esteem upon the base of woe!"[1136:1]

The communicativeness of our nature leads us to describe our own sorrows; in the endeavor to describe them intellectual activity is exerted; and by a benevolent law of our nature from intellectual activity a pleasure results which is gradually associated and mingles as a corrective with the painful subject of the description. True! it may be answered, but how are thePublicinterested in your sorrows or your description? We are for ever attributing a personal unity to imaginary aggregates. What is thePublicbut a term for a number of scattered individuals of whom as many will be interested in these sorrows as have experienced the same or similar?

"Holy be the Lay,Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way!"

There is one species of egotism which is truly disgusting; not that which leads us to communicate our feelings to others, but that which would reduce the feelings of others to an identity with our own. The Atheist, who exclaims "pshaw!" when he glances his eye on the praises of Deity, is an Egotist; an old man, when he speaks contemptuously of love-verses, is an Egotist; and your sleek favourites of Fortune are Egotists, when they condemn all "melancholy discontented" verses.

Surely it would be candid not merely to ask whether the Poem pleases ourselves, but to consider whether or no there may not be others to whom it is well-calculated to give an innocent pleasure. With what anxiety every fashionable author avoids the wordI!—now he transforms himself into a third person,—"the present writer"—now multiplies himself and swells into "we"—and all this is the watchfulness of guilt. Conscious that this saidIis perpetually intruding on his mind and that it monopolizes his heart, he is prudishly solicitous that it may not escape from his lips.

This disinterestedness of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are scrupulous avoiders of Egotism.

Of the following Poems a considerable number are styled "Effusions," in defiance of Churchill's line

"Effusion on Effusionpouraway."[1136:2]

I could recollect no title more descriptive of the manner and matter of the Poems—I might indeed have called the majority of them Sonnets—but they do not possess thatonenessof thought which I deem indispensible (sic) in a Sonnet—and (not a very honorable motive perhaps) I was fearful that the title "Sonnet" might have reminded my reader of the Poems of the Rev. W. L. Bowles—a comparison with whom would have sunk me below that mediocrity, on the surface of which I am at present enabled to float.

Some of the verses allude to an intended emigration to America on the scheme of an abandonment of individual property.

The Effusions signed C. L. were written by Mr.Charles Lamb, of the India House—independently of the signature their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them. For the rough sketch of Effusion XVI, I am indebted to Mr.Favell. And the first half of Effusion XV was written by the Author of "Joan of Arc", an Epic Poem.

(i)

I cannot conclude the Preface without expressing my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. Cottle, Bristol, for the liberality with which (with little probability I know of remuneration from the sale) he purchased the poems, and the typographical elegance by which he endeavoured to recommend them, (or)—the liberal assistance which he afforded me, by the purchase of the copyright with little probability of remuneration from the sale of the Poems.

[This acknowledgement, which was omitted from the Preface to the First Edition, was rewritten and included in the 'Advertisement' to the 'Supplement' to the Second Edition.]

(ii)

A man beloved of Science and of Freedom, these Poems arerespectfully inscribed byThe Author.

[In a letter to Miss Cruikshank (? 1807) (Early Recollections, 1837, i. 201), Coleridge maintains that the 'Sonnet to Earl Stanhope', which was published inPoems, 1796 (videante, pp. 89, 90), 'was inserted by the fool of a publisher [Cottle prints 'inserted by Biggs, the fool of a printer'] in order, forsooth, that he might send the book and a letter to Earl Stanhope; who (to prove that he is notmadin all things) treated both book and letter with silent contempt.' In a note Cottle denies this statement, and maintains that the 'book (handsomely bound) and the letter were sent to Lord S. by Mr. C. himself'. It is possible that before the book was published Coleridge had repented of Sonnet, Dedication, and Letter, and that the 'handsomely bound' volume was sent by Cottle and not by Coleridge, but the 'Dedication' is in his own handwriting and proves that he was, in the first instance at least,particeps criminis. See Note by J. D. Campbell,P. W., 1893, pp. 575, 576.]

Collation.—No title; Introduction, pp. [1]-2; Text (of Sonnets Nos. i-xxviii), pp. 3-16. Signatures A. B. B2. [1796.]

[8o.

[There is no imprint. In a letter to John Thelwall, dated December 17, 1796 (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i, 206), Coleridge writes, 'I have sent you . . . Item, a sheet of sonnets collected by me, for the use of a fewfriends, who payed the printing.' The 'sheet' is bound up with a copy of 'Sonnets and Other poems, by The Rev. W. L. Bowles A. M. Bath, printed by R. Cruttwell: and sold by C. Dilly, Poultry, London,mdccxcvi.Fourth Edition,' which was presented to Mrs. Thelwall, Dec. 18, 1796. At the end of the 'Sonnets' a printed slip (probably a cutting from a newspaper) is inserted, which contains the lines 'To aFriendwho had declared his intention of Writing no more Poetry' (videante, pp. 158, 159). This volume is now in the Dyce Collection, which forms part of the Victoria and Albert Museum. SeeP. and D. W., 1877, ii, pp. 375-9, andP. W., 1893, p. 544.]

Contents.—

The composition of the Sonnet has been regulated by Boileau in his Artof Poetry, and since Boileau, by William Preston, in the elegant prefaceto his Amatory Poems: the rules, which they would establish, are foundedon the practice of Petrarch. I have never yet been able to discover eithersense, nature, or poetic fancy in Petrarch's poems; they appear to me all5one cold glitter of heavy conceits and metaphysical abstractions.However, Petrarch, although not the inventor of the Sonnet, was the firstwho made it popular; andhiscountrymen have taken his poems as themodel. Charlotte Smith and Bowles are they who first made the Sonnetpopular among the present English: I am justified therefore by analogy10in deducing its laws fromtheircompositions.

The Sonnet then is a small poem, in which some lonely feeling isdeveloped. It is limited to aparticularnumber of lines, in order that thereader's mind having expected the close at the place in which he finds it,may rest satisfied; and that so the poem may acquire, as it were, aTotality,—in15plainer phrase, may become aWhole. It is confined to fourteen lines,because as some particular number is necessary, and that particularnumber must be a small one, it may as well be fourteen as any othernumber. When no reason can be adduced against a thing, Custom is asufficient reason for it. Perhaps, if the Sonnet were comprized in less20than fourteen lines, it would become a serious Epigram; if it extended tomore, it would encroach on the province of the Elegy. Poems, in whichno lonely feeling is developed, are not Sonnets because the Author haschosen to write them in fourteen lines; they should rather be entitledOdes, or Songs, or Inscriptions. The greater part of Warton's Sonnets are25severe and masterly likenesses of the style of the Greekεπιγραμματα.

In a Sonnet then we require a developement of some lonely feeling, bywhatever cause it may have been excited; but those Sonnets appear to methe most exquisite, in which moral Sentiments, Affections, or Feelings,are deduced from, and associated with, the scenery of Nature. Such30compositions generate a habit of thought highly favourable to delicacy ofcharacter. They create a sweet and indissoluble union between theintellectual and the material world. Easily remembered from their briefness,and interesting alike to the eye and the affections, these are the poemswhich we can "lay up in our heart, and our soul," and repeat them "when35we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise up".Hence the Sonnets ofBowlesderive their marked superiority over allother Sonnets; hence they domesticate with the heart, and become, as itwere, a part of our identity.

Respecting the metre of a Sonnet, the Writer should consult his own40convenience.—Rhymes, many or few, or no rhymes at all—whatever thechastity of his ear may prefer, whatever the rapid expression of hisfeelingswill permit;—all these things are left at his own disposal. Asameness in the final sound of its words is the great and grievous defect of theItalian language. That rule, therefore, which the Italians have45established, of exactlyfourdifferent sounds in the Sonnet, seems to have arisenfrom their wish to haveas many, not from any dread of findingmore. Butsurely it is ridiculous to make thedefectof a foreign language a reason forour not availing ourselves of one of the marked excellencies of our own."The Sonnet (says Preston,) will ever be cultivated by those who write on50tender, pathetic subjects. It is peculiarly adapted to the state of a manviolently agitated by a real passion, and wanting composure and vigor ofmind to methodize his thought. It is fitted to express a momentary burstof Passion" etc. Now, if there be one species of composition more difficultand artificial than another, it is an English Sonnet on the Italian Model.55Adapted to the agitations of a real passion! Express momentary burstsof feeling in it! I should sooner expect to write patheticAxesorpourforth Extempore EggsandAltars![1140:1]But the best confutation of such idle rulesis to be found in the Sonnets of those who have observed them, in theirinverted sentences, their quaint phrases, and incongruous mixture of60obsolete and Spenserian words: and when, at last, the thing is toiled andhammered into fit shape, it is in general racked and tortured Prose ratherthan any thing resembling Poetry. Miss Seward, who has perhapssucceeded the best in these laborious trifles and who most dogmaticallyinsists on what she calls "the sonnet-claim," has written a very65ingenious although unintentional burlesque on her own system, in thefollowing lines prefixed to the Poems of a Mr. Carey.

"Prais'd be the Poet, who the sonnet-claim,Severest of the orders that belongDistinct and separate to the Delphic song70Shall reverence, nor its appropriate nameLawless assume: peculiar is its frame—From him derived, who spurn'd the city throng,And warbled sweet the rocks and woods among,Lonely Valclusa! and that heir of Fame,75Our greater Milton, hath in many a layWoven on this arduous model, clearly shewnThat English verse may happily displayThose strict energic measures which aloneDeserve the name of Sonnet, and convey80A spirit, force, and grandeur, all their own!

"Anne Seward."

"A spirit, force, and grandeur, all their own!!"—Editor.[1140:2]

Ode / on the / Departing Year./By S. T. Coleridge./Ιου, ιου, ω ω κακα,Υπ' αυ με δεινος ορθομαντειας πονος/Στροβει, ταρασσων φροιμιοις εφημιοις, / . . . . . . /το μελλον ηξει· και συ μην ταχει παρων/Αγαν γ' αληθομαντιν μ' ερεις. / ÆSCHYL. AGAMEM. 1225. /Bristol; Printed by N. Biggs, / and sold by J. Parsons, Paternoster Row, London. / 1796. /

[4o.

Collation.—Title, one leaf, p. [1]; Dedication, To Thomas Poole of Stowey, pp. [3]-4; Text, pp. [5]-15;LinesAddressed to a Young Man of Fortune who abandoned himself to an indolent and causeless Melancholy (signed)S. T. Coleridge, p. 16. [Signatures—B (p. 5)—D (p. 13).]

Poems, / By /S. T. Coleridge, / Second Edition. / To which are now added /Poems/ByCharles Lamb, / And /Charles Lloyd. / Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium / junctarumque Camœnarum; quod utinam neque mors / solvat, neque temporis longinquitas! /Groscoll. Epist. ad Car. Utenhov. et Ptol. Lux. Tast./ Printed by N. Biggs, / For J. Cottle,Bristol, and Messrs. / Robinsons, London. / 1797. /

[8o.

Collation.—Title-page, one leaf, p. [i]; Half-title, one leaf,Poems/ by /S. T. Coleridge/ [followed by Motto as in No. II], pp. [iii]-[iv]; Contents, pp. [v]-vi;Dedication,To the ReverendGeorge ColeridgeofOtterySt.Mary, /Devon.Notus in frates animi paterni.Hor. Carm. Lib.II. 2. /, pp. [vii]-xii; Preface to the First Edition, pp. [xiii]-xvi; Preface to the Second Edition, pp. [xvii]-xx; Half-title,Ode/on the/Departing Year[with motto (5 lines) from Aeschy. Agamem. 1225], one leaf, pp. [1]-[2]; Argument, pp. [3]-[4]; Text, pp. [5]-278; Errata (four lines) at the foot of p. 278.

[Carolus Utenhovius (Utenhove, or Uyttenhove) and Ptolomœus Luxius Tasteus were scholar friends of the Scottish poet and historian George Buchanan (1506-1582), who prefixes some Iambics 'Carolo Utenhovio F. S.' to his Hexameters 'Franciscanus et Fratres'. In some Elegiacs addressed to Tasteus and Tevius, in which he complains of his sufferings from gout and kindred maladies, he tells them that Groscollius (Professor of Medicine at the University of Paris) was doctoring him with herbs and by suggestion:—'Et spe languentem consilioque juvat'. Hence the three names. In another set of Iambics entitled 'Mutuus Amor' in which he celebrates the alliance between Scotland and England he writes:—

Non mortis hoc propinquitasNon temporis longinquitasSolvet, fides quod nexuitIntaminata vinculum.

Hence the wording of the motto. Groscollius is, of course, amot à double entente. It is a name and a nickname. The interpretation of the names and the reference to Buchanan's Hexameters were first pointed out by Mr. T. Hutchinson in theAthenaeum, Dec. 10, 1898.]

[Titles of poems not in 1796 are printed in italics.]

PoemsbyS. T. Coleridge.

PoemsbyCharles Lloyd. pp. [151]-189. Second Edition.

Poemson The DeathofPriscilla Farmer, By herGrandson Charles Lloyd, pp. [191]-213.

Sonnet ['The piteous sobs that choak the Virgin's breath', signed S. T. Coleridge], p. 193.

PoemsbyCharles Lambof the India-House. pp. [215]-240.

[Pp. [xiii]-xvi.]

Compositions resembling those of the present volume are notunfrequently condemned for their querulous Egotism. But Egotism is to becondemned then only when it offends against Time and Place, as in anHistory or an Epic Poem. To censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almostas absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets5or Monodies? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing elsecould. After the more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demandsamusement, and can find it in employment alone; but full of its latesufferings, it can endure no employment not in some measure connectedwith them. Forcibly to turn away our attention to general subjects is10a painful and most often an unavailing effort:

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