43 HYMNS-MOON IN a cave in the mountains of Cashmeer, an image of ice, which makes its appearance thus: Two days before the new moon there appears a bubble of ice, which increases in size every day till the fifteenth day, at which it is an ell or more in height; then, as the moon decreases the image does also till it vanishes. Mem. Read the whole 107th page of Maurice's Hindostan. [In a list of projected works (twentyseven in number !) entered by Coleridge in this note-book, the sixteenth runs thus : 'Hymns to the Sun, the Moon, and the Elements-six hymns. In one of them to introduce a dissection of Athe ism, particularly the Godwinian System of Pride. Proud of what? An outcast of blind Nature ruled by a fatal Necessity--Slave of an Ideot Nature. In the last Hymn a sublime enumeration of all the charms or tremendities of Nature-then a bold avowal of Berkeley's system!!!!' The entry following 'Hymns -Moon' is this: 'Hymns-SunRemember to look at Quintus Curtiuslib. 3, cap. 3 and 4.' There are also a number of similar jottings with regard to the Elements; but the scheme came to nothing.—ED.] 44 THE tongue can't speak when the mouth is cramm'd with earth A little mould fills up most eloquent mouths, And a square stone with a few pious texts Cut neatly on it, keeps the mould down tight. [The original of a soliloquy of Osorio (the 'Ordonio' of Remorse), in Osorio, Act iii. p. 497.-ED.] My unwash'd follies call for penance drear: But when more hideous guilt this heart infests Instead of fiery coals upon my pate, O let a titled patron be my fate ;That fierce compendium of Ægyptian pests! Chill me, like dew-damps of th' unwhole- Right reverend Dean, right honourable some Night. My Love, a timorous and tender flower, Closes beneath thy Touch, unkindly man ! Breath'd on by gentle gales of Courtesy Squire, Lord, Marquis, Earl, Duke, Prince,—or if aught higher, However proudly nicknamed, he shall be Anathema Maránatha to me! [Printed (only) in the first Note' to Poems 1852 (p. 379), from a memorandum by the author,' who describes the lines as the concluding stanza of an Elegy on a Lady, who died in early youth'; and as composed before my 15th year.' In a letter (unpublished) to Thomas Poole, Feb. 1, 1801, Coleridge writes or quotes the following with reference to the death of Mrs. Robinson ('Perdita ')— Well! O'er her piled grave the gale of Evening sighs, And flowers will grow upon its grassy slope, I wipe the dimming waters from mine side and joke vivâ voce, face to face-Stella [Mrs. Thelwall] and Sara [Mrs. S. T. Coleridge], Jack Thelwall and I!—as I once wrote to my dear friend T. Poole,— Repeating Such verse as Bowles, heart honour'd Poet sang, That wakes the Tear, yet steals away the Pang, Then, or with Berkeley, or with Hobbes romance it, Dissecting Truth with metaphysic lancet. Or, drawn from up these dark unfathom’d wells, In wiser folly chink the Cap and Bells. How many tales we told ! what jokes we 58 THE Poet in his lone yet genial hour In unctuous cones of kindling coal, His gifted ken can see 59 1800. neath him Onward and onward. Groans and 'tis dark!--This woman's [Maxilian going out for a day's pleasure, is Wooing, retreating, till the swamp bedeprived of it by the loss of his purse, ' and if a bitter curse on his malignant stars gave a wildness to the vexation with which he looked upward-] LET us not blame him: for against such chances wile I know it! Learnt it from thee, from thy perfidious glances ! Black-ey'd Rebecca ! |