She half inclosed me with her arms,
She press'd me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look'd up,
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.1

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

LEWTI,

OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHANT.

T midnight by the stream I roved,
To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

1 That I might, &c.] See the last verse but two of Lines written at Shurton Bars. A similar naivety of expression creeps out in the concluding paragraphs of Lewti, -which Lamb angrily described as "detestable," and elsewhere. Moreover, before the verse, "Her bosom heaved. . &c.", originally stood the following:

"I saw her bosom heave and swell,
Heave and swell with inward sighs :
I could not choose but love to see

Her gentle bosom rise."

We wish the verse our note is on had also been omitted. It is a blot on the poem,-as false to nature, as it is indelicate.

The moon was high, the moonlight gleam,
And the shadow of a star,
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;

But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half shelter'd from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew.
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.1

I saw a cloud of palest hue,-
Onward to the moon it pass'd:
Still brighter and more bright it grew,
With floating colours not a few,

Till it reach'd the moon at last;
Then the cloud was wholly bright,
With a rich and amber light!

Kind.] We cannot but subjoin the curious paragraph which originally followed here, though evidently wisely omitted for its bad taste:

"I saw the white waves, o'er and o'er,
Break against the distant shore.

All at once upon the sight,
All at once they broke in light:
I heard no murmur of their roar,
Nor ever I beheld them flowing,
Neither coming, neither going;
But only saw them, o'er and o'er,
Break against the curved shore;
Now disappearing from the sight,
Now twinkling regular and white;
And Lewti's smiling mouth can show
As white and regular a row.

Nay, treacherous image! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind."

And so with many a hope I seek,
And with such joy I find my Lewti;
And even so my pale wan cheek

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud-it floats away,
Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey—
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky-

And now 'tis whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,

When, Lewti! on my couch I lie,

A dying man for love of thee.

Nay, treacherous image! leave my mindAnd yet, thou did'st not look unkind.

I saw a vapour in the sky,
Thin, and white, and very high:
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud.
Perhaps the breezes, that can fly
Now below and now above,

Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud
Of lady fair-that died for love.

For maids, as well as youths, have perish'd
From fruitless love too fondly cherish'd.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind—
For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush my heedless feet from under
Slip the crumbling banks for ever:
Like echoes to a distant thunder,

They plunge into the gentle river.
The river-swans have heard
my tread,
And startle from their reedy bed.
O beauteous birds! methinks

ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune!
O beauteous birds! 'tis such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the moon,
I would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies,
When silent night has closed her eyes;
It is a breezy jasmine-bower,
The nightingale sings o'er her head:
Voice of the night, had I the power 1
That leafy labyrinth to thread,

And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,
I then might view her bosom white

Heaving lovely to my sight,

As these two swans2 together heave

On the gently swelling wave.

1 Voice of, &c.] In the Annual Anthology, 1800, this line stood

"Had I the enviable power."

"The epithet enviable," wrote Lamb, "would dash the finest poem, ," and the line was altered.

2 Swans.] We have had this idea before in the early poem of Genevieve. See Beaumont and Fletcher's play of Monsieur Thomas, act i. sc. 1:

"How like a swan she swims her pace, and bears

Her silver breasts."

This play was a favourite with Coleridge.

Oh! that she saw me in a dream,

And dreamt that I had died for care!

All pale and wasted I would seem,

Yet fair withal, as spirits are!
I'd die indeed, if I might see

Her bosom heave, and heave for me!
Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind!
To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

From The Morning Post, 1798.1

THE PICTURE,

OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION.*

HROUGH weeds and thorns, and matted underwood,

I force my way; now climb, and now descend

2

O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts; while oft un

seen,

3

1 1798.] Corrected from 1795,-an evident misprint, though the editions of 1828 and 1834 adopt it. So does Sara Coleridge, in 1852: she is right, however, in ar ranging Lewti before Love, for it was written earlier.

*First printed in The Morning Post, in 1802.

2 Wild.] "Blind": 1802. An unhappy alteration,the earlier reading expressing much more exactly the uncertainty with which your foot steps under the circumstances described.

3 Whorts.] Vaccinium Myrtillus, known by the different names of whorts, whortle berries, bilberries; and in the North of England, blea-berries and bloom-berries.-C. 1802.