This consists of two dactyls, and three trochees; the two dactyls first;
and the trochees following.
Hear, my beloved! an old Milesian story;
High and embosomed in congregated laurels,
Glimmered a temple, upon a breezy headland
In the dim distance, amid the skyey billows,
Rose a fair island; the God of flocks had blest it:
From the dim shores of this bleak resounding island,
Oft in the moon-light a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where between myrtles a path-way stole in mazes,
Up to the groves of the high embosomed temple.
There in a thicket of consecrated roses,
Oft did a Priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the light canoe boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it
Over the dusky waves, till the nightly sailor
Shiv'ring with ecstacy sank upon her bosom.
Now, by the immortals! he was a beauteous stripling,
Worthy to dream the sweet dream of young Endymion."
In the last edition of Mr. Coleridge's poems, (3 vols., 1835) there is a
poem, called "The Destiny of Nations, a Vision;"--a sounding title, with
which the contents but ill accord. No note conveys information to the
reader, what was the origin of this poem; nor does any argument show its
object, or train of thought. Who the maid is, no one can tell, and if
there be a vision respecting the destiny of nations, it is nearly as
confused and incoherent as a true vision of the night; exciting in the
mind some such undefined wonderment, as must have accompanied the descent
of one of Peter Wilkins' winged Aerials.
The reader may here be informed, that the Second book of Mr. Southey's
"Joan of Arc," to line 452, as acknowledged, was written by Mr.
Coleridge, with the intermixture of 97 lines, written by Mr. Southey, in
which there are noble sentiments, expressed in the loftiest poetical
diction; and in which also there is a tutelary spirit introduced to
instruct and counsel the Maid of Orleans. In the second edition of "Joan
of Arc," Mr. Southey omitted the whole of these lines, and intimated to
Mr. C. his intention so to do, as early as the autumn of 1795. I advised
Mr. Coleridge, from the intrinsic merit of the lines, to print them in
the second edition of his poems. To this he assented, but observed, that
he must greatly extend them.
Some considerable time after, he read me the poem in its enlarged state,
calling it "The Progress of Liberty, or the Visions of the Maid of
Orleans." After hearing it read, I at once told him, it was all very
fine, but what it was all about, I could not tell: that it wanted, I
thought, an obvious design, a definite purpose, a cohesion of parts, so
as to make it more of a whole, instead of its being, as it then was,
profuse, but detached splendour, and exhibiting in the management,
nothing like construction. Thus improved, I told him the poem would be
worthy of him. Mr. C. was evidently partial to the lines, and said, "I
shall consider of what you say, and speak again about them."
Amongst my papers I find two or three notes from Mr. C. on this subject,
subsequently received.
"Stowey.
My dear Cottle,
If you delay the press it will give me the opportunity I so much wish, of
sending my "Visions of the Maid of Arc" to Wordsworth, who lives[31] not
above twenty miles from this place; and to Charles Lamb, whose taste and
judgment, I see reason to think more correct and philosophical than my
own, which yet I place pretty high...."
In a succeeding letter Mr. Coleridge says,
"My dear Cottle,
The lines which I added to my lines in the 'Joan of Arc' have been so
little approved by Charles Lamb, to whom I sent them, that although I
differ from him in opinion, I have not heart to finish the poem." Mr.
Coleridge in the same letter, thus refers to his "Ode to the Departing
Year."
"... So much for an 'Ode,' which some people think superior to the 'Bard'
of Gray, and which others think a rant of turgid obscurity; and the
latter are the more numerous class. It is not obscure. My 'Religious
Musings' I know are, but not this 'Ode.'"
Mr. C. still retained a peculiar regard for these lines of the "Visions"
and once meant to remodel the whole, as will appear from the following
letter.
"Stowey, 1797.
My dear Cottle,
I deeply regret, that my anxieties and my slothfulness, acting in a
combined ratio, prevented me from finishing my 'Progress of Liberty, or
Visions of the Maid of Orleans' with that Poem at the head of the volume,
with the 'Ode' in the middle, and the 'Religious Musings' at the end.
... In the 'Lines on the Man of Ross' immediately after these lines,
'He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He mark'd the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze.'
Please to add these two lines.
'And o'er the portioned maiden's snowy cheek,
Bade bridal love suffuse its blushes meek.'
And for the line,
'Beneath this roof, if thy cheer'd moments pass.'