MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY. 'GOD's child in Christ adopted,-Christ my all,- The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father?— The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death: EPITAPH. STOP, Christian Passer-by-Stop, child of God, same! Do thou the 9th November, 1833. NOTES. PAGE 3.-FIRST ADVENT OF LOVE. THE early date assigned to these exquisite lines is derived from a memorandum of the author. "Relics of my School-boy Muse; i. e. fragments of poems composed before my fifteenth year. LOVE'S FIRST HOPE 'O fair is Love's first hope,' &c. The concluding stanza of an Elegy on a Lady, who died in early youth: O'er the raised earth the gales of evening sigh; And see, a Daisy peeps upon its slope! I wipe the dimming waters from mine eye; Even on the cold Grave lights the Cherub Hope! AGE.-A stanza written forty years later than the preceding: Dew-drops are the Gems of Morning, But the tears of dewy Eve! Where no Hope is, Life's a warning, GENEVIEVE.. S. T. C., Sept., 1827." "This little poem was written when the author was a boy." Note to the edition of 1796. THE RAVEN AND TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY, are mentioned as "School-boy Poems" in the Preface to the "Sibylline Leaves," published in 1817. PAGE 13.-KISSES. This "Effusion" and "The Rose" were originally addressed to a Miss F. Nesbitt, at Plymouth, whither the author accompanied his eldest brother, to whom he was paying a visit, when he was twenty-one years of age. Both poems are written in pencil on the blank pages of a copy of Langhorne's Collins. "Kisses" is entitled "Cupid turned Chymist;" is signed S. T. Coleridge, and dated Friday evening, 1793. "THE ROSE" has this heading:-"On presenting a Moss Rose to Miss F. Nesbitt." In both poems the name of Nesbitt appears instead of Sara, afterwards substituted. "KISSES" has this note in the edition of 1796: "Effinxit quondam blandum meditata laborem, Et spolia æstivis plurima rapta rosis: Carm. Quad., vol. ii. PAGE 17.-LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING. In the edition of 1796, this poem is stated to have been written in early youth; and in a note to the line "O (have I sighed) were mine the wizard's rod," the author "entreats the Public's pardon for having carelessly suffered to be printed such intolerable stuff as this and the thirteen following lines;” adding, "that they have not even the merit of originality, as every thought is to be found in the Greek epigrams." In the edition brought out the following year, the whole poem was first omitted, but eventually "reprieved" and printed in an Appendix, at the request of some intelligent friends, who observed, that "what most delighted the author when he was young in writing would probably best please those who are young in reading poetry," and that "a man must learn to be pleased with a subject before he can yield that attention to it which is necessary in order to acquire a just taste." In the edition of 1803 the poem appears in its proper place, without any remark. Few readers will have regretted that this bright and popular strain was thus rescued from the hasty condemnation of its youthful author. In the note, the author repels an imputation of plagiarism from Mr. Rogers's "Pleasures of Memory," and brings a similar charge against his distinguished cotemporary. He finds the original of the tale of "Florio," "in 'Lochleven,' a poem of great merit by Michael Bruce." This assertion he afterwards withdrew, apologizing (in the Appendix above referred to) for his rashness, in very handsome terms. This occurred fifty-six years ago. Mr. Rogers still lives to wear his unwithering laurels. He has seen two generations of his poetic brethren pass away,—μετὰ δὲ τριτάτοισιν ἀνάσσει. وو The following note, in the edition of 1796, may be cited as a proof how early, and how decidedly, the genius of Wordsworth was detected and proclaimed by Coleridge:-"The expression, 'green radiance,' he says, (referring to the "Lines Written at Shurton Bars," p. 54 of the present edition,) "is borrowed from Mr. Wordsworth, a poet whose versification is occasionally harsh, and his diction too frequently obscure," (the "Descriptive Sketches," and "Evening Walk," published 1793, since republished, with numerous corrections, as juvenile pieces, were the poems thus characterised); "but whom I deem unrivalled among the writers of the present day in manly sentiment, novel imagery, and vivid colouring." D. C. PAGE 34.-MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON. This monody was sketched at Christ's Hospital; but meagre indeed is the boyish schema, with scarce any of the fire and felicity of the finished composition. October, 1794, is the date affiixed by the author. It appears from a passage in one of Mr. Southey's letters, that seven lines and a half, toward the end of the poem, were borrowed from a young friend and fellow-poet. "Every thing is in the fairest trim. Favell and Le Grice" (a younger brother of Charles Lamb's Valentine Le Grice), "two young Pantisocrats of nineteen, join us. They possess great genius. You may perhaps like the sonnet on the subject of our emigration, by Favell : "No more my visionary soul shall dwell On joys that were: no more endure to weigh Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray, On which the fierce-eyed fiends their revels keep, New rays of pleasure trembling to the heart." Southey's Life and Correspondence, vol. i., p. 224. At the end of the Preface to the edition of 1796, Mr. Coleridge acknowledges himself indebted to Mr. Favell for the “rough sketch" of Effusion XVI., "Sweet Mercy! how my weary heart has bled;" and to the author of "Joan of Arc" for the first half of Effusion XV., "Pale Roamer through the night," &c. |