The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 32

Order is beautiful arrangement without any purpose 'ad extra';--therefore there is a beauty of order, or order may be contemplated exclusively as beauty.

The form given in every empirical intuition,--the stuff, that is, the quality of the stuff, determines the agreeable: but when a thing excites us to receive it in such and such a mould, so that its exact correspondence to that mould is what occupies the mind,--this is taste or the sense of beauty. Whether dishes full of painted wood or exquisite viands were laid out on a table in the same arrangement, would be indifferent to the taste, as in ladies' patterns; but surely the one is far more agreeable than the other. Hence observe the disinterestedness of all taste; and hence also a sensual perfection with intellect is occasionally possible without moral feeling. So it may be in music and painting, but not in poetry. How far it is a real preference of the refined to the gross pleasures, is another question, upon the supposition that pleasure, in some form or other, is that alone which determines men to the objects of the former;--whether experience does not show that if the latter were equally in our power, occasioned no more trouble to enjoy, and caused no more exhaustion of the power of enjoying them by the enjoyment itself, we should in real practice prefer the grosser pleasure. It is not, therefore, any excellence in the quality of the refined pleasures themselves, but the advantages and facilities in the means of enjoying them, that give them the pre-eminence.

This is, of course, on the supposition of the absence of all moral feeling. Suppose its presence, and then there will accrue an excellence even to the quality of the pleasures themselves; not only, however, of the refined, but also of the grosser kinds,--inasmuch as a larger sweep of thoughts will be a.s.sociated with each enjoyment, and with each thought will be a.s.sociated a number of sensations; and so, consequently, each pleasure will become more the pleasure of the whole being. This is one of the earthly rewards of our being what we ought to be, but which would be annihilated, if we attempted to be it for the sake of this increased enjoyment. Indeed it is a contradiction to suppose it. Yet this is the common 'argumentum in circulo', in which the eudsemonists flee and pursue. ...

POEMS AND POETICAL FRAGMENTS.

'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus'. CATULLUS.

My Lesbia, let us love and live, And to the winds, my Lesbia, give Each cold restraint, each boding fear Of age, and all its saws severe!

Yon sun now posting to the main Will set,--but 'tis to rise again;-- But we, when once our little light Is set, must sleep in endless night.

Then come, with whom alone I'll live, A thousand kisses take and give!

Another thousand!--to the store Add hundreds--then a thousand more!

And when they to a million mount, Let confusion take the account,-- That you, the number never knowing, May continue still bestowing-- That I for joys may never pine, Which never can again be mine! [1]

'Lugete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque.' CATULLUS.

Pity, mourn in plaintive tone The lovely starling dead and gone!

Weep, ye Loves! and Venus, weep The lovely starling fall'n asleep!

Venus see with tearful eyes-- In her lap the starling lies, While the Loves all in a ring Softly stroke the stiffen'd wing.

'Moriens superst.i.ti'.

"The hour-bell sounds, and I must go; Death waits--again I hear him calling;-- No cowardly desires have I, Nor will I shun his face appalling.

I die in faith and honour rich-- But ah! I leave behind my treasure In widowhood and lonely pain;-- To live were surely then a pleasure!

"My lifeless eyes upon thy face Shall never open more to-morrow; To-morrow shall thy beauteous eyes Be closed to love, and drown'd in sorrow; To-morrow death shall freeze this hand, And on thy breast, my wedded treasure, I never, never more shall live;-- Alas! I quit a life of pleasure."

'Morienti superstes.'

"Yet art thou happier far than she Who feels the widow's love for thee!

For while her days are days of weeping, Thou, in peace, in silence sleeping, In some still world, unknown, remote, The mighty parent's care hast found, Without whose tender guardian thought No sparrow falleth to the ground."

[Footnote 1: This and the following poems and fragments, with the exception of those marked with an asterisk, were communicated by Mr.

Gutch. Ed.]

THE STRIPLING'S WAR SONG.

IMITATED FROM s...o...b..RG.

My n.o.ble old warrior! this heart has beat high, Since you told of the deeds that our countrymen wrought; Ah! give me the sabre which hung by thy thigh, And I too will fight as my forefathers fought!

O, despise not my youth! for my spirit is steel'd, And I know there is strength in the grasp of my hand; Yea, as firm as thyself would I move to the field, And as proudly would die for my dear father-land.

In the sports of my childhood I mimick'd the fight,-- The shrill of a trumpet suspended my breath; And my fancy still wander'd by day and by night Amid tumult and perils,'mid conquest and death.

My own eager shout in the heat of my trance, How oft it awakes me from dreams full of glory, When I meant to have leap'd on the hero of France, And have dash'd him to earth pale and deathless and gory!

As late through the city with bannerets streaming, And the music of trumpets the warriors flew by,-- With helmet and scymetar naked and gleaming On their proud trampling thunder-hoof'd steeds did they fly,--

I sped to yon heath which is lonely and bare-- For each nerve was unquiet, each pulse in alarm,-- I hurl'd my mock lance through the objectless air, And in open-eyed dream prov'd the strength of my arm.

Yes, n.o.ble old warrior! this heart has beat high, Since you told of thedeeds that our countrymen wrought; Ah! give me the falchion that hung by thy thigh, And I too will fight as my forefathers fought!

[*] His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead, His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips, The sense, and spirit, and the light divine, At the same moment in his steadfast eye Were virtue's native crest, th' immortal soul's Unconscious meek self-heraldry,--to man Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.

He suffer'd, nor complain'd;--tho' oft with tears He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,-- Yea, with a deeper and yet holier grief Mourn'd for the oppressor. In those sabbath hours His solemn grief, like the slow cloud at sunset, Was but the veil of purest meditation Pierced thro' and saturate with the rays of mind.

'Twas sweet to know it only possible!

Some wishes cross'd my mind and dimly cheer'd it, And one or two poor melancholy pleasures, Each in the pale unwarming light of hope Silvering its flimsy wing, flew silent by-- Moths in the moonbeam!-- --Behind the thin Grey cloud that cover'd, but not hid, the sky, The round full moon look'd small.

The subtle snow in every pa.s.sing breeze Rose curling from the grove like shafts of smoke.

--On the broad mountain top The neighing wild colt races with the wind O'er fern and heath-flowers.

--Like a mighty giantess Seized in sore travail and prodigious birth, Sick nature struggled: long and strange her pangs, Her groans were horrible;--but O, most fair The twins she bore, Equality and Peace.

--Terrible and loud As the strong voice that from the thunder-cloud Speaks to the startled midnight.

Such fierce vivacity as fires the eye Of genius fancy-craz'd.

The mild despairing of a heart resign'd.