PREFACE [THE Preface is the same as that of 1803 and 1828, with addition of the following passage (quoted as a foot-note to the sentence—I have pruned the double-epithets with no sparing hand; and used my best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both of thought and diction. ')—'Without any feeling of anger, I may yet be allowed to express some degree of surprize, that after having run the critical gauntlet for a certain class of faults, which I had, viz. a too ornate, and elaborately poetic diction, and nothing having come before the judgementseat of the Reviewers during the long interval, I should for at least seventeen years, quarter after quarter, have been placed by them in the foremost rank of the proscribed, and made to abide the brunt of abuse and ridicule for faults directly opposite, viz. bald and prosaic language, and an affected simplicity both of matter and mannerfaults which assuredly did not enter into the character of my compositions.-LITERARY LIFE, i. 51. Published 1817.' text of the Biographia Literaria has been considerably modified.)] CONTENTS (The [As the present edition is founded on that of 1829, it seems desirable to give a full list of its contents, shewing at same time their arrangement under the various headings.-ED.] Genevieve To an Infant I 3 187 61 21 The Raven. A Christmas Tale, told Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon Time, Real and Imaginary. An Alle Monody on the Death of Chatterton Songs of the Pixies gory by a school-boy to his little brothers and sisters Absence. A Farewell Ode on quit ting School for Jesus College, Cambridge Lines on an Autumnal Evening The Rose The Kiss 18 Bridgewater, September 1795, in answer to a letter from Bristol 46 46 20 20 33 44 47 15 24 8333 53 70 I. Poems occasioned by political events The Blossoming of the solitary Date tree. 173 Fancy in nubibus The two Founts The Wanderings of Cain [Prose, with the Prefatory Note' which includes the verses] Allegoric Vision [Prose] APPENDIX J' The Improvisatore; or 'John Anderson, my Jo, John.' [Prose and verse. The entry in the 'Contents is New thoughts on old subjects,' and this title is used for the head-lines to the pages] The Garden of Boccaccio 190 112 534 THE POETICAL WORKS OF S. T. COLERIDGE. [The Publisher's Aldine anchor and dolphin.] Vol. I. [II. III.] LONDON: William Pickering. 1834.. 8vo. Vol. I. pp. xiv.; 288. Vol. II. pp. vi.; 338. Vol. III. pp. 331. [Frequently reprinted.] PREFACE [Same as in 1829.] CONTENTS [All the pieces contained in the edition of 1829, with the addition of sixty-six 196 pieces not previously collected. Of these sixty-six, forty-eight then appeared in print for the first time. There were also included (in the second volume) two pieces, not by Coleridge, introduced by the following note: -- 'Anxious to associate the name of a most dear and honored friend with my own, I solicited and obtained the permission of Professor J. H. GREEN to permit the insertion of the two following poems, by him composed. S. T. COLE200 RIDGE. These two poems - Morning invitation to a child, and Consolations of a Maniac continued to be included 204 among Coleridge's poems in Moxon's editions down (at least) to that re-edited by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge in 1870. ་ There was also included, but by mistake, a fragment of six lines with the heading The Same' [as 'On seeing a youth affectionately welcomed by a sister']. These lines formed part of the poem To a Friend [Charles Lamb] together with an unfinished Poem. In the Preface to the one-volume edition of Coleridge's poems edited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge' (the poet's surviving son and daughter) in 1852, the edition of 1834 is thus described :-'That of 1834 was arranged mainly, if not entirely, at the discretion of his earliest Editor, H. N. Coleridge.'] XV THE POEMS OF S. T. COLERIDGE. London William Pickering. Octavo, pp. xvi.; 372. Issued without editor's name or any introduction save the old composite 'Preface,' as printed in 1829. The dramas are excluded. The Contents' include a few early and late pieces, omitted in 1834, and exclude most of the school-boy verses first printed in 1834. The German originals of several of Coleridge's translations and imitations were first given, or brought together, as Notes at the end of this volume. It was doubtless edited by the poet's daughter. ridge, and will have an additional interest ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, Chelsea, PREFACE TO THE PRESENT As a chronological arrangement of Poetry in completed collections is now beginning to find general favour, pains have been taken to follow this method in the present Edition of S. T. Coleridge's Poetical and Dramatic Works, as far as circumstances permittedthat is to say, as far as the date of composition of each poem was ascertainable, and as far as the plan could be carried out without effacing the classes into which the Author had himself distributed his most important poetical publication, the Sibylline Leaves, namely, POEMS OCCASIONED POLITICAL EVENTS, OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM; LOVE POEMS; MEDITATIVE POEMS IN BLANK VERSE; ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. account of these impediments, together with the fact, that many a poem, such as it appears in its ultimate form, is the growth of different periods, the agreement with chronology in this Edition is approximative issues of the edition the Allston portrait instances the date of each piece has been rather than perfect: yet in the majority of XVI THE POEMS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. Edited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge. A new Edition. London Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 1852. [With Portrait of Coleridge at the age of twenty-six. In some later of 1814 was substituted.] Octavo, pp. xxxvii.; 388. [Frequently reprinted.] ADVERTISEMENT THIS volume was prepared for the press by my lamented sister, Mrs. H. N. Cole BY On made out, and its place fixed accordingly. In another point of view also, the Poems have been distributed with relation to time: they are thrown into three broad groups, representing, first the Youth, secondly, the Early Manhood and Middle Life,thirdly, the Declining Age of the Poet; and it will be readily perceived that each division has its own distinct tone and colour, corresponding to the period of life in which it was composed. It has been suggested, indeed, that Coleridge had four poetical epochs, more or less diversely characterised,--that there is a discernible difference betwixt the productions of his Early Manhood and of his Middle Age, the latter being distinguished from those of his Stowey life, which may be considered as his poetic prime, by a less buoyant spirit. Fire they have; but it is not the clear, bright, mounting fire of his earlier poetry, conceived and executed when he and youth were housemates still. In the course of a very few years after three-and-twenty all his very finest poems were produced; his twentyfifth year has been called his annus mirabilis. To be a Prodigal's favourite then, worse truth! a Miser's pensioner,' is the lot of Man. In respect of poetry, Coleridge was a Prodigal's favourite,' more, perhaps, than ever Poet was before. [The poems] produced before the Author's twenty-fourth year [1796], devoted as he was to the soft strains' of Bowles, have more in common with the passionate lyrics of Collins and the picturesque wildness of the pretended Ossian, than with the welltuned sentimentality of that Muse which the overgrateful poet has represented as his earliest inspirer. For the young they will ever retain a peculiar charm, because so fraught with the joyous spirit of youth; and in the minds of all readers that feeling which disposes men 'to set the bud above the rose full-blown' would secure them an interest, even if their intrinsic beauty and sweetness were less adequate to obtain it. That of 1834, the last year of his earthly sojourning, a period when his thoughts were wholly engrossed, so far as the decays of his frail outward part left them free for intellectual pursuits and speculations, by a grand scheme of Christian Philosophy, to the enunciation of which in a long projected work his chief thoughts and aspirations had for many years been directed, was arranged mainly, if not entirely, at the discretion of his earliest Editor, H. N. Coleridge, who, not to mention the boon he has conferred on the public in preserving so valuable a record of his Uncle's conversation as is contained in the Table Talk of S. T. Coleridge, performed his task in editing The Friend, The Literary Remains, The Church and State and Lay Sermons, and The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, in a manner which must ever procure him sentiments of gratitude from all who prize the writings of Coleridge. Such alterations only have been made in this final arrangement of the Poetical and Dramatic Works of S. T. Coleridge, by those into whose charge they have devolved, as they feel assured, both the Author himself and his earliest Editor would at this time find to be either necessary or desirable. The observations and experience of eighteen years, a period long enough to bring about many changes in literary opinion, have satisfied them that the immature essays of boyhood and adolescence, not marked with any such prophetic note of genius as certainly does belong to the four school-boy poems they have retained, tend to injure the general effect of a body of poetry. That a writer, especially a writer of verse, should keep out of sight his third-rate performances, is now become a maxim with critics; for they are not, at the worst, effectless: they have an effect, that of diluting and weakening, to the reader's feelings, the general power of the collection. Mr. Coleridge himself constantly, after 1796, rejected a certain portion of his carliest published Juvenilia: never printed any attempts of his boyhood, except those four with which the present publication commences; and there can be 1 First Advent of Love [Love's first Hope, p. 1931, Genevieve, The Raven, and Time, Real and Imaginary.-ED. |