Shall make your rising bosom feel How oft, my love! with shapings sweet, 'Tis said, in summer's evening hour A fair electric flame: 2 And so shall flash my love-charged eye 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, May your fame fadeless live, as never sere" The ivy' wreathes yon oak, whose broad de fence Embowers me from noon's sultry influence! Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky. Circling the base of the poetic mount * The original title. The title in 1797 was-" Lines addressed to Joseph Cottle," and the first words, "My honour'd friend." 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, 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. Still soar, my friend, those richer views among, What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around! 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 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 Such things, I thought, one might not hope to meet Save in the dear delicious land of Faery! And you, dear Sir! the arch-magician. You much perplex'd me by the various set: 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 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 |