Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried, Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.
He let us loose, and cried, Halloo!
How shall we yield him honour due ?
Wisdom comes with lack of food.
I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude,
Till the cup of rage o'erbrim :
They shall seize him and his brood-
They shall tear him limb from limb!
O thankless beldames and untrue!
And is this all that you can do
For him, who did so much for you?
Ninety1 months he, by my troth!
Hath richly cater'd for you both;
And in an hour would you repay
An eight years' work ?-Away! away!
I alone am faithful! I
Cling to him everlastingly.
1 Ninety.] This puts us back to the breaking out of the French Revolution.
"Quas1 humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in ævo,
Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acutâ
Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.
Omnia paulatim consumit longior ætas,
Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.
Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor :
Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,
Voxque aliud sonat-
Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,
Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus
Mens horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum."
LL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
1 Quas, &c.] The quotation is worth conning over. * A fragment of The Ballad of the Dark Ladie. For others, see" Miscellaneous Poems and Fragments." First published in The Morning Post, in 1799, and afterwards in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, in 1800.
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruin'd tower.
The moonshine,' stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
She lean'd against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listen'd to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I play'd a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
her face.
The moonshine, &c.] The idea occurs in Coleridge's description of his ascent of the Brocken, written, like the poem, immediately upon his return from Germany :"The moon above us blending with the evening light." Gillman's Life of Coleridge.
I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined; and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
But when I told the cruel scorn,
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he cross'd the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,-
There came and look'd him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!
And that, unknowing what he did,
He leap'd amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land ;-
And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees;
And how she tended him in vain ;
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain ;—
And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay ;—
His dying words-but when I reach'd
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturb'd her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes, long subdued,
Subdued and cherish'd long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved-she stepp'd aside;
As conscious of my look she stept;
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.
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