And rather wander than stand still, I trow. There is a Wisdom to be shewn in Passion, And there are stay'd and settled Griefs. I'll be Severe unto myself, and make my Soul Seek out a regular motion. MS. 99 HIS native accents to her stranger's ear, Skill'd in the tongues of France and Italy Or while she warbles with bright eyes upraised, Her fingers shoot like streams of silver light Amid the golden haze of thrilling strings. MS. 100 I STAND alone, nor tho' my heart should break, Have I, to whom I may complain or speak. Here I stand, a hopeless man and sad, Who hoped to have seen my Love, my Life. And strange it were indeed, could I be glad Remembering her, my soul's betrothed wife. For in this world no creature that has life Was e'er to me so gracious and so good. Her loss to my Heart, like the Heart's blood. MS. on fly-leaf of Menzini's Poesie, 1782, My thoughts all stand ministrant night vol. ii. and day Like saintly Priests, that dare not think amiss. MS. 98 These, Emmeline, are not The journies but digressions of our Souls, That being once informed with Love, I must work ΙΟΙ WHAT never is but only is to be, O Hopeless Hope, and Death's Hypocrisy And with perpetual promise breaks its promises. MS. 102 THE THREE SORTS OF FRIENDS [First printed in Fraser's Magazine for January To 1835. Art. Coleridgeiana.'] THOUGH friendships differ endless in degree, The sorts, methinks, may be reduced to three. Acquaintance many, and Conquaintance few; But for Inquaintance I know only two- maid I woo! MY DEAR GILLMAN - The ground and matériel of this division of one's friends into ac, con and inquaintance, was given by Hartley Coleridge when he was scarcely five years old [1801]. On some one asking him if Anny Sealey (a little girl he went to school with) was an acquaintance of his, he replied, very fervently pressing his right hand on his heart, No, she is an inquaintance !' Well! 'tis a father's tale'; and the recollection soothes your old friend and inquaintance, S. T. COLERIDGE. 103 I [S. T. C.] find the following lines among my papers, in my own writing, but whether an unfinished fragment, or a contribution to some friend's production, I know not : WHAT boots to tell how o'er his grave Of transient love begotten; O Woman! nurse of hopes and fears, Thy soul in blameless mirth possessing; More lovely still than tears suppressing. Allsop's Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, 1836, ii. 75. 104 CHARITY IN THOUGHT praise men as good, and to take them for such, Is a grace which no soul can mete out to a tittle ; Of which he who has not a little too much, Will by Charity's gauge surely have much too little. |