A Day with Samuel Taylor Coleridge Part 2

Is the night chilly and dark?

The night is chilly, but not dark.

The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky.

The moon is behind, and at the full; And yet she looks both small and dull.

The night is chill, the cloud is gray: 'Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle gate?

She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low, And naught was green upon the oak, But moss and rarest mistletoe: She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel!

It moaned as near, as near can be, But what it is, she cannot tell.-- On the other side it seems to be, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white, That shadowy in the moonlight shone: The neck that made that white robe wan, Her stately neck, and arms were bare; Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were, And wildly glittered here and there The gems entangled in her hair.

I guess, 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she-- Beautiful exceedingly!

And a chilly basis, these solemnly-propounded theories, for the gorgeous fabric of _The Ancient Mariner_. Originally founded, as regards its main outlines, upon a dream which occurred to Cruikshank,--a dream of a skeleton s.h.i.+p with figures in it,--who could have antic.i.p.ated such results as that unforgettable scene where "The Ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off"?--

The western wave was all a-flame; The day was well nigh done; Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun; When that strange shape drove suddenly Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars (Heaven's Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) How fast she nears and nears!

Are those _her_ sails that glance in the Sun, Like restless gossameres!

Are those _her_ ribs through which the Sun Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a Death? and are there two?

Is Death that woman's mate?

_Her_ lips were red, _her_ looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; 'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened, and looked sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip-- Till clomb above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip.

Or who could have supposed that Wordsworth's subsequent suggestion for the plot of the poem, "Suppose you represent the Mariner as having killed an Albatross on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon themselves to avenge the crime," should develop into that magnificent defence of the animal right to live, which, in Coleridge's opinion, obtruded a moral sentiment too openly in a work of such pure imagination? The curse of remorse, throughout the whole story, hangs as heavy on the seaman's soul as does the dead weight of the Albatross around his neck: until that mystical moment when he blesses the beauty of the "happy living things" in the water, "G.o.d's creatures of the great calm,"

The moving Moon went up the sky, And no where did abide: Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April h.o.a.r-frost spread; But where the s.h.i.+p's huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the s.h.i.+p, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of s.h.i.+ning white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in h.o.a.ry flakes.

Within the shadow of the s.h.i.+p I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware: Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MARINER RECEIVES COMFORT IN PRAYER.

"The self-same moment I could pray: And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea."

(_The Ancient Mariner_).]

... Side by side the three friends wandered over the May-sweet hillsides,--dipping into wooded combes, musical with the sound of streams,--climbing the heathery slopes, resting here and there upon some glorious crest to drink in all the joy and colour of the landscape, and to reflect, in Coleridge's own words, how--

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Friends.h.i.+p is a sheltering tree.

Each of them young,--each of them pa.s.sionate lovers of Nature,--each br.i.m.m.i.n.g with hopes, and equipped with commanding intellect,--they formed the three-fold chord, with its tonic, dominant and mediant, of which is born all music....

It was nearly eight o'clock when Coleridge parted from the Wordsworths at the gate of Alfoxden. They were happily tired after some nine hours'

rambling, and a serene joy lit up their faces, as of those who have pa.s.sed through some enchanting experience,--who have touched at some oasis of sheer delight. Coleridge tried to frame his thoughts into words, as he strode homeward with his loose shambling gait, continually s.h.i.+fting from one side of the path to the other after his notorious "corkscrew" habit.

The notes of the nightingale, poignantly sweet, echoed to him out of the woods,--and he would gladly have lingered to listen; but, instead, he thought--

Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve, And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!

We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes.--That strain again!

Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound, Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up, And bid us listen! And I deem it wise To make him Nature's play-mate. He knows well The evening star; and once, when he awoke In most distressful mood (some inward pain Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream) I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, And he beheld the Moon, and, hushed at once, Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, While his fair eyes, that swam with un-dropped tears, Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam! Well!-- It is a father's tale. But if that Heaven Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up Familiar with these songs, that with the night He may a.s.sociate joy! Once more farewell, Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends! farewell.

Sara met him in the road with a despondent air. "Lloyd has gone," said she.

"Gone! what, actually _gone_! Do you mean to say he has left us?"

exclaimed Coleridge, horrorstruck.

"He packed up his things and took leave of me," she replied; "it seems he hired a conveyance from Bristol to fetch him home."

"Good Heavens!" cried her husband: and all the tranquil joy died out of his face; nothing but weariness, flabbiness and dejection remained. "Did he give no reason?"

"O, he said things about the Wordsworths," replied Sara. "He thinks you have neglected him shamefully. So do I." And she shut her mouth with a snap.

Coleridge, though so prolific a conversationalist, and so p.r.o.ne to speech, knew when there was a time to be silent. He attempted no defence or excuse. He simply went indoors, and sitting distastefully to an unprepossessing supper, let Sara say her say upon the subject of Lloyd: it was an extensive and a justifiable recrimination. Then--still in the same abstracted and monosyllabic state,--he helped to wash up, attended--better late than never--to the pigs and fowls, and sat before the fire, with a note-book in his hands and baby-clothes pinned to warm upon his knees, while Sara put the child to bed. He was working out with patient care those apparently unpremeditated effects which go to make up the haunting melody of _Christabel_. For, skilful and accomplished metrist as he was, it was only by dint of "repeated experiments and intense mental effort"

that he achieved those results in which his art appears most artless.

However, he was in no fit state, over-tired and distressed as he felt, for laborious efforts of this kind: and presently Nature took vengeance upon him in the form of intolerable toothache. A little while he bore it: then, moving tip-toe lest he should be heard in the upper room where Sara was soothing the little one to sleep, he stole to a corner cupboard and took out a bottle of laudanum. In this false friend and insidious comforter he had already found relief and repose from mental, as from physical troubles,--more and more frequently he had recourse to it. He knew its fatal tendency to undermine the will and debilitate the const.i.tution, yet he could not deny himself an artificial peace which he described as "a spot of enchantment, a green spot of fountains and trees in the very heart of a waste of sand."

And immediately he began to view things _couleur de rose_. The sharp tongue and angry face of Sara became transmogrified into the gentle semblance of her anagram, the imaginary _Asra_ of his poems,--

To be beloved is all I need, And whom I love I love indeed.