Poems Of Coleridge Part 21

And with grim triumph and a truculent glee Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy, That made an empire's plighted faith a lie, And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye-- (Pleased with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart To stand outmaster'd in his own black art!) Yet Butler-

FRIEND

Enough of Butler! we're agreed, Who now defends would then have done the deed.

But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway, Who but must meet the proffer'd hand half way When courteous Butler--

POET (_aside_)

(Rome's smooth go-between!)

FRIEND

Laments the advice that sour'd a milky queen-- (For "b.l.o.o.d.y" all enlighten'd men confess An antiquated error of the press:) Who, rapt by zeal beyond her s.e.x's bounds, With actual cautery staunch'd the Church's wounds!

And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur We d.a.m.n the French and Irish ma.s.sacre, Yet blames them both--and thinks the Pope might err!

What think you now? Boots it with spear and s.h.i.+eld Against such gentle foes to take the field Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?

POET

What think I now? Even what I thought before;-- What Butler boasts though Butler may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray When the shown feeling points a different way.

Smooth Butler can say grace at slander's feast, And bless each haut-gout cook'd by monk or priest; Leaves the full lie on Butler's gong to swell, Content with half-truths that do just as well; But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks, And with him shares the Irish nation's thanks!

So much for you, my friend! who own a Church, And would not leave your mother in the lurch!

But when a Liberal asks me what I think-- Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink, And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam, In search of some safe parable I roam-- An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!

Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, I see a tiger lapping kitten's food: And who shall blame him that he purs applause, When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause; And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws!

Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt, Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws!

1825, or 1826.

ON DONNE'S POETRY

With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots, Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots; Rhyme's st.u.r.dy cripple, fancy's maze and clue, Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

?1818.

ON A BAD SINGER

Swans sing before they die--'twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.

NE PLUS ULTRA

Sole Positive of Night!

Antipathist of Light!

Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod-- The one permitted opposite of G.o.d!-- Condensed blackness and abysmal storm Compacted to one sceptre Arms the Grasp enorm-- The Interceptor-- The Substance that still casts the shadow Death!-- The Dragon foul and fell-- The unrevealable, And hidden one, whose breath Gives wind and fuel to the fires of h.e.l.l!-- Ah! sole despair Of both the eternities in Heaven!

Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer, The all-compa.s.sionate!

Save to the Lampads Seven Reveal'd to none of all the Angelic State, Save to the Lampads Seven, That watch the throne of Heaven!

?1826.

HUMAN LIFE

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY

If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But _are_ their _whole_ of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul like Milton's can know death; O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!

Surplus of Nature's dread activity, Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She formed with restless hands unconsciously.

Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, The counter-weights!--Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create And to repay each other! Why rejoices Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?

Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?

Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?

Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!

Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none; Thy being's being is contradiction.

?1815.

THE b.u.t.tERFLY

The b.u.t.terfly the ancient Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name-- But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of earthly life!--For in this mortal frame Our's is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

?1815.

THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL

AN ALLEGORY

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