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Shall make your rising bosom feel
The answering swell1 of mine!

How oft, my love! with shapings sweet,
I paint the moment we shall meet !
With eager speed I dart—
I seize you in the vacant air,
And fancy, with a husband's care
I press you to my heart!

'Tis said, in summer's evening hour
Flashes the golden-colour'd flower

A fair electric flame:

2

And so shall flash my love-charged eye
When all the heart's big ecstasy

Shoots rapid through the frame!

The answering swell.] Compare Love, in Sibylline Leaves, last verse but one.

2 Electric flame.] A phenomenon observed by M. Haggern, a naturalist, in Sweden, " in the months of July and August at sunset, and for half an hour, when the atmosphere was clear." "The following flowers emitted flashes, more or less vivid, in this order :-1, the marigold, galendula officinalis; 2, monk's-hood, tropælum majus; 3, the orange lily, lilium bulbiferum; 4, the Indian pink, tagetes patula, et erecta."-Substance of a note by Coleridge in the edition of 1796.

TO THE

AUTHOR OF POEMS

PUBLISHED ANONYMOUSLY AT BRISTOL, IN

SEPTEMBER, 1795.*

NBOASTFUL bard! whose verse concise yet clear

Tunes to smooth melody unconquer'd sense,

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May your fame fadeless live, as never sere" The ivy' wreathes yon oak, whose broad de

fence

Embowers me from noon's sultry influence!
For, like that nameless rivulet stealing by,
Your modest verse to musing quiet dear
Is rich with tints heaven-borrow'd; the
charm'd eye

Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky.

Circling the base of the poetic mount
A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow
Its coal-black waters from oblivion's fount;
The vapour-poison'd birds, that fly too low,
Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go.

* The original title. The title in 1797 was-" Lines addressed to Joseph Cottle," and the first words, "My honour'd friend."

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Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet Beneath the mountain's lofty-frowning brow, Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet,

A mead of mildest charm delays the unlabouring feet.

Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast,

That, like some giant king, o'erglooms the hill,
Nor there the pine-grove to the midnight blast
Makes solemn music! But the unceasing rill
To the soft wren or lark's descending trill
Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid jasmin bowers.
In this same pleasant meadow, at your will,
I ween, you wander'd-there collecting flowers
Of sober tint, and herbs of medicinable powers!

1

There for the monarch-murder'd soldier's tomb, You wove the unfinished wreath of saddest hues,

And to that holier chaplet 2 added bloom, Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews! But lo! your Henderson 3 awakes the museHis spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height ! You left the plain and soar'd 'mid richer views! So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light,

With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of night!

War, a fragment.-C.

2 John the Baptist, a poem.-C.
9 Monody on John Henderson.-C.

Still soar, my friend, those richer views among,
Strong, rapid, fervent, flashing fancy's beam!
Virtue and truth shall love your gentler song;
But poesy demands the impassion'd theme:
Waked by heaven's silent dews at eve's mild
gleam,

What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around!
But if the vex'd air rush a stormy stream,
Or Autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive
sound,

With fruits and flowers she loads the tempesthonour'd ground.

THE SILVER THIMBLE.*

THE PRODUCTION OF A YOUNG LADY, ADDRESSED TO

THE AUTHOR OF THE POEMS ALLUDED TO IN

THE PRECEDING EPISTLE.

She had lost her Thimble, and her complaint being accidentally overheard by him, her Friend, he immediately sent her four others to take her choice of.

S oft mine eye with careless glance
Has gallop'd o'er some old romance,
Of speaking birds and steeds with
wings,

Giants and dwarfs, and fiends and kings;

* Sara Coleridge is of opinion that her mother did not write many lines of this poem. Coleridge never meant it to be thought that she did.

Beyond the rest with more attentive care
I've loved to read of elfin-favour'd Fair;
How if she long'd for aught beneath the sky
And suffer'd to escape one votive sigh,
Wafted along on viewless pinions aery
It laid itself obsequious at her feet:

Such things, I thought, one might not hope to

meet

Save in the dear delicious land of Faery!
But now (by proof I know it well)
There's still some peril in free wishing;
Politeness is a licensed spell,

And you, dear Sir! the arch-magician.

You much perplex'd me by the various set:
They were indeed an elegant quartette!
My mind went to and fro, and waver'd long;
At length I've chosen (Samuel thinks me

wrong)

That, around whose azure rim

Silver figures seem to swim,

Like fleece-white clouds, that on the skiey blue, Waked by no breeze, the self-same shapes retain;

Or ocean-Nymphs with limbs of snowy hue
Slow-floating o'er the calm cerulean plain.

Just such a one, mon cher ami, (The finger-shield of industry)

The inventive Gods, I deem, to Pallas gave, What time the vain Arachne, madly brave, Challenged the blue-eyed Virgin of the sky A duel in embroider'd work to try.

And hence the thimbled finger of grave Pallas

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