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What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon
dreams,

The play-fellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength

Their ministers, who in lordly wise had stirred

Among the grandest objects of the sense,
And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it; they, too, who of gentle mood
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers
more mild,

And in the region of their peaceful selves;Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty

Did both find, helpers to their hearts' desire, And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish,

Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia,-subterranean fields,-
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows
where!

But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us, the place where, in the end,
We find our happiness, or not at all!

Why should I not confess that Earth was then

To me, what an inheritance, new-fallen, Seems, when the first time visited, to one Who thither comes to find in it his home? He walks about and looks upon the spot With cordial transport, molds it and remolds, And is half pleased with things that are amiss,

Twill be such joy to see them disappear.

An active partisan, I thus convoked From every object pleasant circumstance To suit my ends; I moved among mankind With genial feelings still predominant; When erring, erring on the better part, And in the kinder spirit; placable, Indulgent, as not uninformed that men See as they have been taught-Antiquity Gives rights to error; and aware, no less, That throwing off oppression must be work As well of License as of Liberty;

And above all-for this was more than allNot caring if the wind did now and then Blow keen upon an eminence that gave Prospect so large into futurity;

In brief, a child of Nature, as at first,
Diffusing only those affections wider
That from the cradle had grown up with me,
And losing, in no other way than light
Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong.

In the main outline, such it might be said Was my condition, till with open war Britain opposed the liberties of France. This threw me first out of the pale of love; Soured and corrupted, upwards to the

source,

My sentiments; was not, as hitherto,
A swallowing up of lesser things in great,
But change of them into their contraries;
And thus a way was opened for mistakes
And false conclusions, in degree as gross,
In kind more dangerous. What had been
a pride,

Was now a shame; my likings and my loves
Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry;
And hence a blow that, in maturer age,
Would but have touched the judgment,
struck more deep

Into sensations near the heart: meantime,
As from the first, wild theories were afloat,
To whose pretensions, sedulously urged,
I had but lent a careless ear, assured
That time was ready to set all things right,
And that the multitude, so long oppressed,
Would be oppressed no more.

But when events Brought less encouragement, and unto these The immediate proof of principles no more Could be entrusted, while the events themselves,

Worn out in greatness, stripped of novelty, Less occupied the mind, and sentiments Could through my understanding's natural growth

No longer keep their ground, by faith maintained

Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid
Her hand upon her object-evidence
Safer, of universal application, such
As could not be impeached, was sought else-
where.

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But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame
Of a false prophet. While resentment rose
Striving to hide, what nought could heal,
the wounds

Of mortified presumption, I adhered
More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove
Their temper, strained them more; and
thus, in heat

Of contest, did opinions every day
Grow into consequence, till round my mind
They clung, as if they were its life, nay
more,

The very being of the immortal soul.

This was the time, when, all things tending fast

To depravation, speculative schemes-
That promised to abstract the hopes of Man
Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth
Forever in a purer element—
Found ready welcome. Tempting region
that

For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,
Where passions had the privilege to work,
And never hear the sound of their own

names.

But, speaking more in charity, the dream Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least

With that which makes our Reason's naked self

The object of its fervor. What delight! How glorious! in self-knowledge and selfrule,

To look through all the frailties of the world,

And, with a resolutę mastery shaking off
Infirmities of nature, time, and place,
Build social upon personal Liberty,
Which, to the blind restraints of general
laws

Superior, magisterially adopts

One guide, the light of circumstances, flashed

Upon an independent intellect.

Thus expectation rose again; thus hope, From her first ground expelled, grew proud

once more.

Oft, as my thoughts were turned to human kind,

I scorned indifference; but, inflamed with thirst

Of a secure intelligence, and sick

Of other longing, I pursued what seemed
A more exalted nature; wished that Man
Should start out of his earthy, worm-like
state,

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Of ancient Institutions said and done
To bring disgrace upon their very names;
Disgrace, of which, custom and written law,
And sundry moral sentiments as props
Or emanations of those institutes,
Too justly bore a part. A veil had been
Uplifted; why deceive ourselves? in sooth,
'Twas even so; and sorrow for the man
Who either had not eyes wherewith to see,
Or, seeing, had forgotten! A strong shock
Was given to old opinions; all men's minds
Had felt its power, and mine was both let
loose,

Let loose and goaded. After what hath been

Already said of patriotic love,

Suffice it here to add, that, somewhat stern In temperament, withal a happy man,

And therefore bold to look on painful

things,

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Her titles and her honors; now believing,
Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed
With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the
ground

Of obligation, what the rule and whence
The sanction; till, demanding formal proof,
And seeking it in everything, I lost
All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,
sick, wearied out with contrarieties,
Fielded up moral questions in despair.

This was the crisis of that strong disease, This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped,

Deeming our blessèd reason of least use
Where wanted most: "The lordly attributes
Of will and choice," I bitterly exclaimed,
"What are they but a mockery of a Being
Who hath in no concerns of his a test
Of good and evil; knows not what to fear
Or hope for, what to covet or to shun;
And who, if those could be discerned, would
yet

Be little profited, would see, and ask
Where is the obligation to enforce?
And, to acknowledged law rebellious, still,
As selfish passion urged, would act amiss;
The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime."

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In reconcilement with an utter waste Of intellect; such sloth I could not brook, (Too well I loved, in that my spring of life, Painstaking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward)

But turned to abstract science, and there sought

Work for the reasoning faculty enthroned Where the disturbances of space and time— Whether in matters various, properties Inherent, or from human will and power Derived-find no admission. Then it wasThanks to the bounteous Giver of all good!

That the beloved Sister in whose sight
Those days were passed, now speaking in a
voice

Of sudden admonition-like a brook
That did but cross a lonely road, and now
Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every
turn,

Companion never lost through many a league

Maintained for me a saving intercourse

With my true self; for, though bedimmed and changed

Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed

Than as a clouded and a waning moon:
She whispered still that brightness would
return,

She, in the midst of all, preserved me still
A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,
And that alone, my office upon earth;
And, lastly, as hereafter will be shown,
If willing audience fail not, Nature's self,
By all varieties of human love

Assisted, led me back through opening day To those sweet counsels between head and heart

Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace,

Which, through the later sinkings of this

cause,

Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now
In the catastrophe (for so they dream,
And nothing less), when, finally to close
And seal up all the gains of France, a Pope
Is summoned in to crown an Emperor-
This last opprobrium, when we see a people,
That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven
For manna, take a lesson from the dog
Returning to his vomit; when the sun
That rose in splendor, was alive, and moved
In exultation with a living pomp

Of clouds-his glory's natural retinue— Hath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed,

And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine,
Sets like an Opera phantom.

Thus, O Friend! 1 Through times of honor and through times of shame

Descending, have I faithfully retraced The perturbations of a youthful mind Under a long-lived storm of great eventsA story destined for thy ear, who now, Among the fallen of nations, dost abide Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts His shadow stretching towards Syracuse, The city of Timoleon! Righteous Heaven! How are the mighty prostrated! They first, They first of all that breathe should have awaked

When the great voice was heard from out the tombs

Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief
For ill-required France, by many deemed
A trifler only in her proudest day;

1 Coleridge, to whom the poem is addressed.

Have been distressed to think of what she

once

Promised, now is; a far more sober cause
Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land,
To the reanimating influence lost
Of memory, to virtue lost and hope,
Though with the wreck of loftier years
bestrewn.

But indignation works where hope is not, And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is

One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead. [Books X, 221-602; XI, 1-395.]

FRANCE: AN ODE 1

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

I

Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause,

Whose pathless march no mortal may con

trol!

Ye Ocean Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll,
Yield homage only to eternal laws!
Ye Woods! that listen to the night-bird's
singing,

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,

Save when your own imperious branches swinging,

Have made a solemn music of the wind! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod,

How oft, pursuing fancies holy, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound.

Inspired beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquera

ble sound!

O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high! And O ye Clouds that far above me soared!

Written in February, 1798, and entitled The Recantation; an Ode. Observe that there is neither in Coleridge nor in Wordsworth any recantation of their allegiance to the principle of liberty. His disappointment in France has, however, led Coleridge to the conviction "that those feelings and that grand ideal of Freedom which the mind attains by its contemplation of its individual nature, and of the sublime surrounding objects (see first stanza), do not belong to men as a society, nor can possibly be either gratified or realized under any form of human government, but belong to the individual man, so far as he is pure, and inflamed with the adoration of God in Nature." This attitude, the refuge of political idealists in despair, looks forward to the point of view of Shelley and Byron.

Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea, everything that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored

The spirit of divinest Liberty.

II

When France in wrath her giant-limbs upreared,

And with that oath which smote air, earth, and sea,

Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free,

Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared!

With what a joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band: And when to whelm the disenchanted nation, Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand, The Monarchs marched in evil day, And Britain join'd the dire array; Though dear her shores and circling ocean, Though many friendships, many youthful loves

Had swoln the patriot emotion

And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves;

Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat To all that braved the tyrant-quelling

lance,

And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat!

For ne'er, O Liberty! with partial aim
I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy

flame;

But blessed the pæans of delivered France, And hung my head and wept at Britain's

name.

III

"And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream

With that sweet music of deliverance strove!

Though all the fierce and drunken pas

sions wove

A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's

dream!

Ye storms, that round the dawning east

assembled,

The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light!"

And when to soothe my soul, that hoped

and trembled,

The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright;

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