A star hath set, a star hath risen, O Geraldine! since arms of thine O Geraldine! one hour was thine- (An appalling fancy) But now they are jubilant anew, From cliff and tower tu-whoo! tu-whoo! And see! the lady Christabel (This, observe, begins a new paragraph, with a break in the rhyme) Gathers herself from out her trance; Her limbs relax, her countenance Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep, Like a youthful hermitess Who praying always, prays in sleep. Perchance 't is but the blood so free We see how such a poet obtains his music. Such forms of melody can proceed only from the most beautiful inner spirit of sympathy and imagination. He sympathizes, in his universality, with antipathy itself. If Regan or Goneril had been a young and handsome witch of the times of chivalry, and attuned her violence to craft, or betrayed it in venomous looks, she could not have beaten the soft-voiced, appalling spells, or sudden, snakeeyed glances of the lady Geraldine,-looks which the innocent Christabel, in her fascination, feels compelled to "imitate.” A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy, And the lady's eyes they shrank in her head, And with somewhat of malice and more of dread, This is as exquisite in its knowledge of the fascinating tendencies of fear as it is in its description. And what can surpass a line quoted already in the Essay (but I must quote it again!) for very perfection of grace and sentiment?—the line in the passage where Christabel is going to bed, before she is aware that her visitor is a witch. Quoth Christabel,-So let it be ! Oh! it is too late now; and habit and self-love blinded me at the time, and I did not know (much as I admired him) how great a poet lived in that grove at Highgate; or I would have cultivated its walks more, as I might have done, and endeavored to return him, with my gratitude, a small portion of the delight his verses have given me. I must add, that I do not think Coleridge's earlier poems at all equal to the rest. Many, indeed, I do not care to read a second time; but there are some ten or a dozen, of which I never tire, and which will one day make a small and precious volume to put in the pockets of all enthusiasts in poetry, and endure with the language. Five of these are The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, Genevieve, and Youth and Age. Some, that more personally relate to the poet, will be added for the love of him, not omitting the Visit of the Gods, from Schiller, and the famous passage on the Heathen Mythology, also from Schiller. A short life, a portrait, and some other engravings perhaps, will complete the book, after the good old fashion of Cooke's and Bell's editions of the Poets; and then, like the contents of the Jew of Malta's casket, there will be Infinite riches in a little room. LOVE; OR, GENEVIEVE. All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Are all but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, The moonlight stealing o'er the scene, She leant against the armèd man, The statue of the armèd knight; Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. I play'd a soft and doleful air, I sang an old and moving story— An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary. She listen'd with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes and modest grace, For well she knew I could not choose But gaze upon her face. I told her of the knight that wore I told her how he pin'd, and—ah! She listen'd with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes and modest grace, And she forgave me, that I gaz'd Too fondly on her face! But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely knight, And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night: That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once There came and look'd him in the face An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew it was a fiend, And that, unknowing what he did, And sav'd from outrage worse than death And how she wept and claspt his knees; And how she tended him in vain |