CHARITY IN THOUGHT1

To praise men as good, and to take them for such,
Is a grace which no soul can mete out to a tittle;-
Of which he who has not a little too much,

Will by Charity's gauge surely have much too little.

? 1830.

HUMILITY THE MOTHER OF CHARITY 2

FRAIL creatures are we all! To be the best,
Is but the fewest faults to have:-

Look thou then to thyself, and leave the rest
To God, thy conscience, and the grave.

? 1830.

[COELI ENARRANT] 8

THE stars that wont to start, as on a chace,
Mid twinkling insult on Heaven's darken'd face,
Like a conven'd conspiracy of spies

Wink at each other with confiding eyes!
Turn from the portent-all is blank on high,
No constellations alphabet the sky:

The Heavens one large Black Letter only shew,
And as a child beneath its master's blow
Shrills out at once its task and its affright—'
The groaning world now learns to read aright,
And with its Voice of Voices cries out, O!
? 1830.

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1 First published in 1834. 2 First published in 1834. 3 Now first published from a MS. of uncertain date. 'I wrote these lines in imitation of Du Bartas as translated by our Sylvester.' S.T.C. Compare Leigh Hunt's story of Boyer's reading-lesson at Christ's Hospital:- Pupil.— (. never remembering the stop at the word 66 Missionary"). "Missionary Can you see the wind?" (Master gives him a slap on the cheek.) Pupil.-(Raising his voice to a cry, and still forgetting to stop.) “Indian No."' Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, 1860, p. 68.

REASON 1

['Finally, what is Reason? You have often asked me: and this is my answer' :-]

WHENE'ER the mist, that stands 'twixt God and thee,
Defecates to a pure transparency,

That intercepts no light and adds no stain—
There Reason is, and then begins her reign!

Ecoelo descendit γνώθι σεαυτόν.—JUVENAL, xi. 27.

Γνώθι σεαυτόν !—and is this the prime

And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time!—

Say, canst thou make thyself?-Learn first that trade;

Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made.

What hast thou, Man, that thou dar'st call thine own?— 5 What is there in thee, Man, that can be known?

Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,

A phantom dim of past and future wrought,

Vain sister of the worm,-life, death, soul, clod-
Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!

1832.

First published as the conclusion of On the Constitution of the Church and State, 1830, p. 227. First collected, P. and D. W., 1877–80, ii. 374. 2 First published in 1834.

Self-knowledge-Title] The heading 'Self-knowledge' appears first in

FORBEARANCE1

Beareth all things.-1 COR. xiii. 7.

GENTLY I took that which ungently came,2
And without scorn forgave:-Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark

Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark.
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,
Fear that the spark self-kindled from within,

Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,
Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,
And soon the ventilated spirit finds

Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,

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10

A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side,

Think it God's message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it;-thine the gains-
Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

15

? 1832.

LOVE'S APPARITION AND EVANISHMENT 3

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE

LIKE a lone Arab, old and blind,
Some caravan had left behind,

1 First published in 1834.

2 Compare Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar (Februarie) :—

'Ne ever was to Fortune foeman,

But gently took that ungently came.'

3 Lines 1-28 were first published in Friendship's Offering for 1834, signed and dated 'S. T. Coleridge, August 1833': included in P. W., 1834. Lines 29–32 were first added as 'L'Envoy' in 1852. J. D. Campbell in a note to this poem (1893, p. 644) prints an expanded version of these lines, which were composed on April 24, 1824, as Coleridge says, "without taking my pen off the paper". The same lines were sent in a letter to Allsop, April 27, 1824 (Letters, &c., 1836, ii. 174–5) with a single variant (line 3) uneclips'd' for unperturb'd'. In the draft of April 24, four lines were added, and of these an alternative version was published in P. W., 1834, with the heading 'Desire' (vide ante, p. 485). For an earlier draft in S. T. C.'s handwriting vide Appendices of this edition.

Forbearance-Title] The heading 'Forbearance' appears first in 1893.

Who sits beside a ruin'd well,

Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
And now he hangs his agéd head aslant,
And listens for a human sound-in vain!
And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain ;-
Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
I sate upon the couch of camomile;

And-whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
Flitted across the idle brain, the while

I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,
In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
Turn'd my eye inward-thee, O genial Hope,
Love's elder sister! thee did I behold,
Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
Lie lifeless at my feet!

And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
And stood beside my seat;

She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,

As she was wont to do;

Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath
Woke just enough of life in death
To make Hope die anew.

L'ENVOY

In vain we supplicate the Powers above;
There is no resurrection for the Love

That, nursed in tenderest care, yet fades away
In the chill'd heart by gradual self-decay.

1833.

4 Where basking Dipsads* hiss and swell F. O. 1834.

* The Asps of the sand-desert, anciently named Dipsads.

IO

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20

25

30

7 And now] Anon F. O. 1834. 14 Flitting across the idle sense the while F. 0. 1834. 27 That woke enough F. 0. 1834.

29-32

Idly we supplicate the Powers above :
There is no resurrection for a Love
That uneclips'd, unshadow'd, wanes away
In the chill'd heart by inward self-decay.
Poor mimic of the Past! the love is o'er
That must resolve to do what did itself of yore.
Letter, April 27, 1824.

TO THE YOUNG ARTIST'

KAYSER OF KASERWERTH

KAYSER! to whom, as to a second self,
Nature, or Nature's next-of-kin, the Elf,
Hight Genius, hath dispensed the happy skill
To cheer or soothe the parting friend's 'Alas!'
Turning the blank scroll to a magic glass,
That makes the absent present at our will;
And to the shadowing of thy pencil gives
Such seeming substance, that it almost lives.

Well hast thou given the thoughtful Poet's face!
Yet hast thou on the tablet of his mind
A more delightful portrait left behind-
Even thy own youthful beauty, and artless grace,
Thy natural gladness and eyes bright with glee!
Kayser! farewell!

Be wise! be happy! and forget not me.

1833.

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MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY 2

GoD's child in Christ adopted,-Christ my all,-
What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather
Than forfeit that blest name, by which I call
The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father?-
Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee-
Eternal Thou, and everlasting we.

The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death:
In Christ I live! in Christ I draw the breath

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1 First published in 1884. The original of Kayser's portrait of S. T. C., a pencil-sketch, is in the possession of the Editor. In 1852 Kaserwerth is printed Kayserwerth. The modern spelling is Kaiserswerth.

First published in Friendship's Offering for 1834: included in P. W., 1884. Emerson heard Coleridge repeat an earlier version of these lines on Aug. 5, 1833.

My Baptismal Birth-day-Title] Lines composed on a sick-bed, under severe bodily suffering, on my spiritual birthday, October 28th.

F. 0.

1 Born unto God in Christ-in Christ, my All! F. 0. 3 I] we F.0. 4 my] our F. 0. 7 fear] dread F. 0.