Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Effusion 16, to an Old
Old Man

['Sweet

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Melancholy Letter .

Epistle 3, written after a Walk

Epistle 4, to the Author of Poems published in Bristol [Cottle]

Epistle 5, from a Young Lady ['The Silver Thimble']

Religious Musings.

At the end, 'Notes on Religious Musings' and 'Notes' [on the other poems].

ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR: By S. T. Coleridge. [Motto from Eschylus.] Bristol Printed by N. Biggs, and sold by J. Parsons, Paternoster Row, London, 1796.

Quarto, 16 pp.

At the end were printed the Lines addressed to a Young Man of Fortune who abandoned himself to an indolent and causeless Melancholy [Charles Lloyd].

IV

POEMS by S. T. Coleridge, Second Edition. To which are added POEMS by Charles Lamb, and Charles Lloyd.

Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiæ et similium junctarumque Camoenarum ; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas! Groscoll. Epist. ad Car. Utenhov, et Ptol. Lux. Tast.

Printed by N. Biggs, for J. Cottle, Bristol, and Messrs. Robinsons, LONDON, 1797. Octavo, pp. xx. ; 278.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

[This was reprinted in 1797 with the omission of the opening paragraph, and of all that follows the sentence ending 'to give an innocent pleasure.' The following passages were added-the first between the quotation 'Holy be the lay,' etc., and the paragraph beginning 'There is one species of egotism'; and the second at the end.

[ocr errors]

50

51

53

[ocr errors]

43

44

III

It is practically a reproduction of the tame the swell and glitter both of thought omitted opening paragraph.-ED.]

I

IF I could judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm, that the most interesting passages in our most interesting Poems are those in which the author developes his own feelings. The sweet voice of Cona1 never sounds so sweetly as when it speaks of itself; and I should almost suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who could read the opening of the third book of the Paradise Lost without peculiar emotion. By a law of our Nature, he, who labours under a strong feeling, is impelled to seek for sympathy; but a Poet's feelings are all strong. Quicquid amet valde amat. Akenside therefore speaks with philosophical accuracy when he classes Love and Poetry, as producing the same effects:

'Love and the wish of Poets when their tongue Would teach to others' bosoms what so charms Their own.'-Pleasures of Imagination.

II

I SHALL only add that each of my readers will, I hope, remember that these poems on various subjects, which he reads at one time and under the influence of one set of feelings, were written at different times and prompted by very different feelings; and therefore that the supposed inferiority of one poem to another may sometimes be owing to the temper of mind in which he happens to peruse it.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND
EDITION

I RETURN my acknowledgments to the different Reviewers for the assistance, which they have afforded me, in detecting my poetic deficiencies. I have endeavoured to avail myself of their remarks: one third of the former Volume I have omitted, and the imperfections of the republished part must be considered as errors of taste, not faults of carelessness. My poems have been rightly charged with a profusion of double-epithets, and a general turgidness. I have pruned the double-epithets with no sparing hand; and used my best efforts to 1 Ossian.

and diction. This latter fault however had insinuated itself into my Religious Musings' with such intricacy of union, that sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the weed from the fear of snapping the flower. A third and heavier accusation has been brought against me, that of obscurity; but not, I think, with equal justice. An Author is obscure when his conceptions are dim and imperfect, and his language incorrect, or unappropriate, or involved. A poem that abounds in allusions, like the 'Bard' of Gray, or one that impersonates high and abstract truths, like Collins's Ode on the poetical character,' claims not to be popular-but should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency is in the Reader. But this is a charge which every poet, whose imagination is warm and rapid, must expect from his contemporaries. Milton did not escape it; and it was adduced with virulence against Gray and Collins. We now hear no more of it not that their poems are better understood at present than they were at their first publication; but their fame is established; and a critic would accuse himself of frigidity or inattention, who should profess not to understand them. But a living writer is yet sub judice; and if we cannot follow his conceptions or enter into his feelings, it is more consoling to our pride

to consider him as lost beneath, than as soaring above, us. If any man expect from my poems the same easiness of style which he admires in a drinking-song, for him I have not written. Intelligibilia, non intellectum adfero.

I expect neither profit nor general fame by my writings; and I consider myself as having been amply repayed without either. Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward' it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.

There were inserted in my former Edition, a few Sonnets of my Friend and old School-fellow, CHARLES LAMB. He has now communicated to me a complete Collection of all his Poems; quæ qui non

prorsus amet, illum omnes et Virtutes et Veneres odere. My friend CHARLES LLOYD has likewise joined me; and has contributed every poem of his, which he deemed worthy of preservation. With respect to my own share of the Volume, I have omitted a third of the former Edition, and added almost an equal number. The Poems thus added are marked in the Contents by Italics. S. T. C.

STOWEY, May 1797.

[This volume included a 'SUPPLEMENT,' to which was prefixed the following:-]

ADVERTISEMENT

I HAVE excepted the following Poems from those, which I had determined to omit. Some intelligent friends particularly requested it, observing that what most delighted me when I was 'young in writing poetry would probably best please those who are young in reading poetry and a man must learn to be pleased with a subject, before he can yield that attention to it, which is requisite in order to acquire a just taste.' I however was fully convinced, that he, who gives to the press what he does not thoroughly approve in his own closet, commits an act of disrespect, both against himself and his fellow-citizens. The request and the reasoning would not, therefore, have influenced me, had they not been assisted by other motives. The first in order of these verses, which I have thus endeavoured to reprieve from immediate oblivion, was originally addressed

To the Author of Poems published anonymously, at Bristol.' A second edition of these poems has lately appeared with the Author's name prefixed; and I could not refuse myself the gratification of seeing the name of that man among my poems, without whose kindness they would probably have remained unpublished; and to whom I know myself greatly and variously obliged, as a Poet, a Man and a Christian.

[ocr errors]

did (and still do) perceive a certain likeness between the two stories; but certainly not a sufficient one to justify my assertion. I feel it my duty, therefore, to apologize to the Author and the Public, for this rashness; and my sense of honesty would not have been satisfied by the bare omission of the note. No one can see more clearly the littleness and futility of imagining plagiarisms in the works of men of Genius; but nemo omnibus horis sapit; and my mind, at the time of writing that note, was sick and sore with anxiety, and weakened through much suffering. I have not the most distant knowledge of Mr. Rogers, except as a correct and elegant Poet. If any of my readers should know him personally, they would oblige me by informing him that I have expiated a sentence of unfounded detraction, by an unsolicited and self-originating apology.

Having from these motives re-admitted two, and those the longest of the poems I had omitted, I yielded a passport to the three others, which were recommended by the greatest number of votes. There are

some lines too of Lloyd's and Lamb's in this Appendix. They had been omitted in the former part of the volume, partly by accident; but I have reason to believe that the Authors regard them, as of inferior merit; and they are therefore rightly placed, where they will receive some beauty from their vicinity to others much worse.

[blocks in formation]

I

Epitaph on an Infant

145

The second is entitled An Effusion on an Autumnal Evening, written in early youth.' In a note to this poem I had asserted that the tale of Florio in Mr. Rogers''Pleasures of Memory' was to be found in the Lochleven' of Bruce.

The Kiss

To a young Ass Domestic Peace

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

32 THE composition of the Sonnet has been 63 regulated by Boileau in his Art of Poetry, and since Boileau, by William Preston, in the elegant preface to his Amatory Poems: the rules, which they would establish, are founded on the practice of Petrarch. I have never yet been able to discover sense, nature, or poetic fancy in Petrarch's poems; they appear to me all one cold glitter of heavy conceits and metaphysical abstractions. However, Petrarch, although not

Religious Musings.

53

SUPPLEMENT 1

Advertisement

541
50

Lines to Joseph Cottle

1 The Supplement' was an intention formed as early as November 1, 1796. In a letter of that date to Thomas Poole, Coleridge, after detailing the poems which would form his second edition, writes :-"Then another title-page with Juvenilia on it, and an advertisement signifying that the poems were retained by the desire of some friends, but that they are to be considered as being in the Author's own opinion of very inferior merit. In this sheet will be *Absence-*La Fayette-*Genevieve-*Kosciusko-*Autumnal Moon-*To the Nightingale-Imitation of Spenser-Poem written in Early Youth [An Autumnal Evening]. All the others will be finally and totally omitted.' -BIOG. LIT. Biog. Supp. (1847, ii. 377). It will be observed that the poems I have marked with

an asterisk [*] were not inserted even in the 'Supplement,' and that they were replaced by four which had been condemned to death.

1 A piece of petulant presumption, of which I should be more ashamed, if I did not flatter myself that it stands alone in my writings. The best of the joke is that at the time I wrote it, I did not understand a word of Italian, and could therefore judge of this divine Poet only by bald translations of some half-dozen of his Sonnets. (MS. Note by S. T. C. in a copy of the edition of 1797, now in the possession of Mr. Frederick Locker.) [Note in edition of 1877.]

the inventor of the Sonnet, was the first who made it popular; and his countrymen have taken his poems as the model. Charlotte Smith and Bowles are they who first made the Sonnet popular among the present English: I am justified therefore by analogy in deducing its laws from their compositions.

It

The Sonnet then is a small poem, in which some lonely feeling is developed. is limited to a particular number of lines, in order that the reader's mind having expected the close at the place in which he finds it, may rest satisfied; and that so the poem may acquire, as it were, a Totality, -in plainer phrase, may become a Whole. It is confined to fourteen lines, because as some particular number is necessary, and that particular number must be a small one, it may as well be fourteen as any other number. When no reason can be adduced against a thing, Custom is a sufficient reason for it. Perhaps, if the Sonnet were comprised in less than fourteen lines, it would become a serious Epigram; if it extended to more, it would encroach on the province of the Elegy. Poems, in which no lonely feeling is developed, are not Sonnets because the Author has chosen to write them in fourteen lines: they should rather be entitled Odes, or Songs, or Inscriptions. The greater part of Warton's Sonnets are severe and masterly likenesses of the style of the Greek ἐπιγραμματα.

In a Sonnet then we require a development of some lonely feeling, by whatever cause it may have been excited; but those Sonnets appear to me the most exquisite, in which moral Sentiments, Affections, or Feelings, are deduced from, and associated with, the Scenery of Nature. Such compositions generate a kind of thought highly favourable to delicacy of character. They create a sweet and indissoluble union between the intellectual and the material world. Easily remembered from their briefness, and interesting alike to the eye and the affections, these are the poems which we can lay up in our heart and our soul,' and repeat them when we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise up.' Hence the Sonnets of BOWLES derive their marked superiority over all other Sonnets; hence they do

mesticate with the heart, and become, as it were, a part of our identity.

Respecting the metre of a Sonnet, the Writer should consult his own convenience.-Rhymes, many or few, or no rhymes at all-whatever the chastity of his ear may prefer, whatever the rapid expression of his feelings will permit;—all these things are left at his own disposal. A sameness in the final sound of its words is the great and grievous defect of the Italian language. That rule, therefore, which the Italians have established, of exactly four different sounds in the Sonnet, seems to have arisen from their wish to have as many, not from any dread of finding more. But surely it is ridiculous to make the defect of a foreign language a reason for our not availing ourselves of one of the marked excellencies of our own. 'The Sonnet,' says Preston, 'will ever be cultivated by those who write on tender, pathetic subjects. It is peculiarly adapted to the state of a man violently agitated by a real passion, and wanting composure and vigor of mind to methodize his thought. It is fitted to express a momentary burst of passion,' etc. Now, if there be one species of composition more difficult and artificial than another, it is an English Sonnet on the Italian Model. Adapted to the agitations of a real passion! Express momentary bursts of feeling in it! I should sooner expect to write pathetic Axes or pour forth Extempore Eggs and Altars! But the best confutation of such idle rules is to be found in the Sonnets of those who have observed them, in their inverted sentences, their quaint phrases, and incongruous mixture of obsolete and Spenserian words: and when, at last, the thing is toiled and hammered into fit shape, it is in general racked and tortured Prose rather than any thing resembling Poetry.

The Sonnet has been ever a favourite species of composition with me; but I am conscious that I have not succeeded in it. From a large number I have retained such only as seemed not beneath mediocrity. Whatever more is said of them, ponamus lucro.

« VorigeDoorgaan »