_With Mr. Coleridge's last corrections_.
Maiden, that with sullen brow
Sitt'st behind those virgins gay,
Like a scorched and mildew'd bough,
Leafless mid the blooms of May.
Him who lured thee and forsook,
Oft I watch'd with angry gaze,
Fearful saw his pleading look,
Anxious heard his fervid phrase.
Soft the glances of the youth,
Soft his speech, and soft his sigh;
But no sound like simple truth,
But no true love in his eye.
Loathing thy polluted lot,
Hie thee, maiden, hie thee hence!
Seek thy weeping mother's cot,
With a wiser innocence.
Thou hast known deceit and folly,
Thou hast felt that vice is woe;
With a musing melancholy,
Inly armed, go, maiden! go.
Mother, sage of self dominion,
Firm thy steps, O melancholy!
The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion
Is the memory of past folly.
Mute the sky-lark and forlorn
While she moults the firstling plumes,
That had skimm'd the tender corn,
Or the bean-field's odorous blooms.
Soon with renovated wing,
Shall she dare a loftier flight,
Upward to the day-star spring,
And embathe in heavenly light.
ON AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN,
Whom The Author Had Known In The Days Of Her Innocence.
(_With Mr. Coleridge's last corrections_.)
Myrtle-leaf that ill-besped,
Pinest in the gladsome ray;
Soiled beneath the common tread,
Far from thy protecting spray!
When the partridge o'er the sheaf
Whirred along the yellow vale,
Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf!
Love the dalliance of the gale.
Lightly didst thou, foolish thing!
Heave and flutter to his sighs,
While the flatterer on his wing,
Woo'd and whispered thee to rise.
Gaily from thy mother stalk
Wert thou danced and wafted high--
Soon upon this sheltered walk,
Flung to fade, to rot, and die.
Mr. Coleridge having requested me to decide concerning the introduction
into his volume of the two preceding Poems, I approved of the second,
with certain alterations, (which was accordingly printed,) and rejected
the first, for the reasons assigned in the following letter. This letter
is introduced for the sake of Mr. C.'s reply, and to exhibit the candid
and untenacious quality of his mind. As a mark of Mr. Coleridge's
solicitude to obtain the observations of another, without surrendering
his own ultimate judgment, he always encouraged my remarks on his
compositions. When about to send the second edition of his Poems to the
press, he thus wrote to me.
"My dear Cottle,
... On Thursday morning, by Milton, the Stowey carrier, I shall send you
a parcel, containing the book of my Poems interleaved, with the
alterations, and likewise the prefaces, which I shall send to you, for
your criticisms...."
This is mentioned as an apology for the freedom of the remarks I then
took, for it was always my principle not to spare a friend through
mistaken kindness;--however much I might spare myself.
"Dear Coleridge,
You have referred your two last Poems to my judgment. I do not think your
first, 'Maiden! that with sullen brow,' admissible, without a little more
of your nice picking.
The first verse is happy, but two objections apply to the second. To my
ear, (perhaps too fastidious) 'inly,' and 'inmost,' are too closely
allied for the same stanza; but the first line presents a more serious
objection, in containing a transition verb, (or rather a participle, with
the same government) without an objective:
'Inly gnawing, thy distresses
Mock those starts of sudden glee.'
Gnawing what? surely not distresses; though the bar of a comma can hardly
keep them apart. In order to give it any decent meaning, a tortuous
ellipsis is necessary; to pursue which, gives the reader too much toil.
Rejecting the first horse in the team, the three last are beautiful
animals.
To the last line in the third stanza, I rather object; 'With a wiser
innocence.' The meaning, it appears to me, would be more definite and in
character, if you were to say, as you do not represent her utterly
debased, 'With thy wreck of innocence.' The apostrophe to the 'Weeping
mother's cot,' is then impressive. In the fourth stanza, why do you
introduce the old word 'Lavrac' a word requiring an explanatory note? Why
not say at once, sky-lark? A short poem, _you_ know better than _I_,
should be smooth as oil, and lucid as glass. The two last stanzas, with
their associates, will require a few of your delicate touches, before you
mount them on the nautilus which is to bear them buoyant round the world.
These two last stanzas, about the 'Lavrac' though good in themselves,
(with the exception of one line, which I will not point out, its
roughness absolutely reminds one of 'Bowling-green Lane!') appear to me
to be awkward appendages. The illustration is too much extended. It is
laboured; far-fetched. It is an infelicitous attempt to blend sportive
fancy with fact that has touched the heart, and which, in this its
sobered mood, shrinks from all idle play of imagination. The transition
is too abrupt from truth to fancy. This simile of two stanzas, also, out
of five, is a tail disproportioned to the size of so small a body:--A
thought elongated, ramified, attenuated, till its tendril convolutions
have almost escaped from their parent stem. I would recommend you to let
this Lavrac fly clean away, and to conclude the Poem with the third
affecting stanza, unless you can continue the same train of feeling. This
you might readily effect, by urging the 'unfortunate' in seeking her
'weeping mother's cot' to cheer that mother by moral renovation.
I now come to the second Poem, 'Allegorical lines.' This poem has sound
materials, but it wants some of your hard tinkering. Pardon my
unceremonious language. I do not like that affected old word,
'ill-besped' in the first line. To ascribe human feelings to a leaf, as
you have done through the whole Poem, notwithstanding your authority, as
I conceive, offensively violates reason. There is no analogy; no
conceivable bond of union between thought and inanimate things, and it is
about as rational as though, in sober reasoning, you were to make the
polished shoe remonstrate with its wearer, in being soiled so soon after
it had received its lustre. It is the utmost stretch of human concession,
to grant thought and language to living things;--birds, beasts, and
fishes; rights which the old fablers have rendered inalienable, as
vehicles of instruction; but here, as I should think, the liberty ends.
It is always a pity when sense and poetry cannot go together. They are
excellent arm-in-arm companions, but quarrelsome neighbours, when a stile
separates them. The first line in the second stanza I do not like.
'When the scythesman o'er his sheaf.'
Two objections apply to this line. The word scythesman, for a short poem,
is insufferably rough; and furthermore requires the inhalation of a good
breath, before it can be pronounced; besides which, as the second
objection, by connecting sheaves with scythesman, it shows that the
scythe is cutting wheat, whereas, wheat is cut with a hook or sickle. If
my agricultural knowledge be correct, barley and oats are cut with a
scythe, but these grains are not put into sheaves. Had you not better
substitute rustic, for scythesman?
The first line in the third stanza is not happy. The spondee, in a
compound word, sometimes gives a favourable emphasis; but to my taste,
rarely, when it is formed of a double epithet. It has the appearance of
labour, like tugging against a hill. Would not 'foolish' be simpler and
better than 'poor fond?' I have one other objection, and that,
unfortunately, is in the last line.
'Flung to fade, and rot, and die!'
Surely, if it rots, it must die, or have died.