Then the milk-thistle flourished through

the land,

And forced the full-swoln udder to demand, Thrice every day, the pail and welcome hand.

Thus does the father to his children tell
Of banished bliss, by fancy loved too well.
Alas! that human guilt provoked the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.

'Tis morn with gold the verdant mountain glows

He, all superior but his God disdained, Walked none restraining, and by none restrained

Confessed no law but what his reason taught,

Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought.

As man in his primeval dower arrayed
The image of his glorious Sire displayed,
Even so, by faithful Nature guarded, here
The traces of primeval Man appear;
The simple dignity no forms debase;
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace :

rose.

Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
A solemn sea! whose billows wide around
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound:
Pines, on the coast, through mist their tops
uprear,

That like to leaning masts of stranded ships appear.

A single chasm, a gulf of gloomy blue,
Gapes in the centre of the sea--and, through
That dark mysterious gulf ascending, sound
Innumerable streams with roar profound.
Mount through the nearer vapours notes of
birds,

And merry flageolet; the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the heifer's tinkling bell,
Talk, laughter, and perchance a church-
tower knell :

Think not, the peasant from aloft has gazed And heard with heart unmoved, with soul unraised:

Nor is his spirit less enrapt, nor less
Alive to independent happiness,

Then, when he lies, out-stretched, at eventide

Upon the fragrant mountain's purple side: For as the pleasures of his simple day Beyond his native valley seldom stray, Nought round its darling precincts can he find

But brings some past enjoyment to his mind;

While Hope, reclining upon Pleasure's

urn,

Binds her wild wreaths, and whispers his return.

Once, Man entirely free, alone and wild, Was blest as free-for he was Nature's child.

1 Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small numbers have gained over their oppressors, the house of Austria; and in parti. cular, to one fought at Næffels near Glarus, where three hundred and thirty men are said to have defeated an army of between fifteen and twenty thousand Austrians. Scattered over the valley are to be found eleven stones, with this inscription, 1388, the year the battle was fought, marking out, as I was told upon the spot, the several places where the Austrians, attempting to make a stand, were repulsed anew.

C

Or when, upon the mountain's silent brow Reclined, he sees, above him and below, Bright stars of ice and azure fields of snow; While needle peaks of granite shooting bare Tremble in ever-varying tints of air.

And when a gathering weight of shadows brown

Falls on the valleys as the sun goes down; And Pikes, of darkness named and fear and storms,1

Uplift in quiet their illumined forms, In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,

Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy redAwe in his breast with holiest love unites, And the near heavens impart their own delights.

When downward to his winter hut he

goes,

Dear and more dear the lessening circle

grows;

That hut which on the hills so oft employs His thoughts, the central point of all his joys.

And as a swallow, at the hour of rest,
Peeps often ere she darts into her nest,
So to the homestead, where the grandsire
tends

A little prattling child, he oft descends,
To glance a look upon the well-matched
pair;

Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.

There, safely guarded by the woods behind, He hears the chiding of the baffled wind, Hears Winter calling all his terrors round, And, blest within himself, he shrinks not

And here the unwilling mind may more than trace

The general sorrows of the human race; The churlish gales of penury, that blow Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow, To them the gentle groups of bliss deny That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie. Yet more;-compelled by Powers which only deign

That solitary man disturb their reign, Powers that support an unremitting strife With all the tender charities of life,

Full oft the father, when his sons have

grown

To manhood, seems their title to disown ; And from his nest amid the storms of heaven

Drives, eagle-like, those sons as he was driven;

With stern composure watches to the plain

And never, eagle-like, beholds again!

When long-familiar joys are all resigned, Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind?

Lo! where through flat Batavia's willowy groves,

Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves ; O'er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,

And search the affections to their inmost cell;

Sweet poison spreads along the listener's veins,

Turning past pleasures into mortal pains; Poison, which not a frame of steel can

Yet, when opprest by sickness, grief, or care, And taught that pain is pleasure's natural heir,

We still confide in more than we can know;

Last, let us turn to Chamouny that shields

With rocks and gloomy woods her fertile fields:

woe.

'Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow

that shine,

Between interminable tracts of pine,
Within a temple stands an awful shrine,
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls.
Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain
That
views, undimmed, Einsiedlen's 1
wretched fane.

While ghastly faces through the gloom

appear,

Abortive joy, and hope that works in fear; While prayer contends with silenced agony, Surely in other thoughts contempt may die. If the sad grave of human ignorance bear One flower of hope-oh, pass and leave it there!

The tall sun, pausing on an Alpine spire, Flings o'er the wilderness a stream of fire: Now meet we other pilgrims ere the day Close on the remnant of their weary way; While they are drawing toward the sacred floor

Where, so they fondly think, the worm

shall gnaw no more.

How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste The fountains 2 reared for them amid the waste!

Their thirst they slake :-they wash their toil-worn feet

And some with tears of joy each other greet.

Yes, I must see you when ye first behold Those holy turrets tipped with evening gold,

In that glad moment will for you a sigh
Be heaved, of charitable sympathy;

In that glad moment when your hands are prest

In mute devotion on the thankful breast!

1 This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from every corner of the Catholic world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions.

2 Rude fountains built and covered with sheds for the accommodation of the Pilgrims, in their ascent of the mountain.

blend ;

A scene more fair than what the Grecian

feigns

Of purple lights and ever-vernal plains; Here all the seasons revel hand in hand: 'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned,

They sport beneath that mountain's matchless height

That holds no commerce with the summer night.

From age to age, throughout his lonely bounds

The crash of ruin fitfully resounds; Appalling havoc ! but serene his brow, Where daylight lingers on perpetual snow; Glitter the stars above, and all is black below.

What marvel then if many a Wanderer sigh,

While roars the sullen Arve in anger by, That not for thy reward, unrivalled Vale! Waves the ripe harvest in the autumnal gale; That thou, the slaves of slaves, art doomed to pine

And droop, while no Italian arts are thine, To soothe or cheer, to soften or refine.

Hail Freedom! whether it was mine to

stray,

With shrill winds whistling round my lonely

way,

On the bleak sides of Cumbria's heath-clad moors,

Or where dank sea-weed lashes Scotland's shores;

To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing rose,

And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows;
Still have I found, where Tyranny prevails,
That virtue languishes and pleasure fails,
While the remotest hamlets blessings share
In thy loved presence known, and only
there;
Heart-blessings-outward treasures too
which the eye

Of the sun peeping through the clouds can

spy,

And every passing breeze will testify.

bound

Or woodbine wreaths, a smoother path is wound;

The housewife there a brighter garden sees, Where hum on busier wing her happy bees; On infant cheeks there fresher roses blow; And grey-haired men look up with livelier brow,

To greet the traveller needing food and

rest;

Housed for the night, or but a half-hour's guest.

And oh, fair France! though now the traveller sees

Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze;

Though martial songs have banished songs

of love,

And nightingales desert the village grove, Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms,

And the short thunder, and the flash of arms;

That cease not till night falls, when far and nigh,

Sole sound, the Sourd1 prolongs his mournful cry!

-Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads

her power Beyond the cottage-hearth, the cottage-door: All nature smiles, and owns beneath her eyes Her fields peculiar, and peculiar skies. Yes, as I roamed where Loiret's waters glide Through rustling aspens heard from side to side,

When from October clouds a milder light Fell where the blue flood rippled into white; Methought from every cot the watchful bird Crowed with ear-piercing power till then unheard;

Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams,

Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;

Chasing those pleasant dreams, the falling leaf

Awoke a fainter sense of moral grief;
The measured echo of the distant flail
Wound in more welcome cadence down the

vale;

1 An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.

GUILT AND SORROW

OR

INCIDENTS UPON SALISBURY PLAIN

Unwilling to be unnecessarily particular, I have assigned this poem to the dates 1793 and '94; but in fact much of the "Female Vagrant's" story was composed at least two years before. All that relates to her sufferings as a sailor's wife in America, and her condition of mind during her voyage home, were faithfully taken from the report made to me of her own case by a friend who had been subjected to the same trials and affected in the same way. Mr. Coleridge, when I first became acquainted with him, was so much impressed with this poem, that it would have encouraged me to publish the whole as it then stood; but the mariner's fate appeared to me so tragical as to require a treatment more subdued and yet more strictly applicable in expression than I had at first given to it. This fault was corrected nearly fifty years afterwards, when I determined to publish the whole. It may be worth while to remark, that, though the incidents of this attempt do only in a small degree produce each other, and it deviates accordingly from the general rule by which narrative pieces ought to be governed, it is not therefore wanting in continuous hold upon the mind, or in unity, which is effected by the identity of moral interest that places the two personages upon the same footing in the reader's sympathies. My rambles over many parts of Salisbury Plain put me, as mentioned in the preface, upon writing this poem, and left on my mind imaginative impressions the force of which I have felt to this day. From that district I proceeded to Bath, Bristol, and so on to the banks of the Wye, where I took again to travelling on foot. In remembrance of that part of my journey, which was in '93, I began the versesFive years have passed."

ADVERTISEMENT

PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS POEM, PUBLISHED IN 1842

Not less than one-third of the following poem, though it has from time to time been altered in the expression, was published so far back as the year 1798, under the title of "The Female Vagrant." The extract is of such length that an apology seems to be required for reprinting it here but it was necessary to restore it to its original position, or the rest would have been unintelligible. The whole was written before the close of the year 1794, and I will detail, rather as matter of literary biography than for any other

reason, the circumstances under which it was produced.

During the latter part of the summer of 1793, having passed a month in the Isle of Wight, in view of the fleet which was then preparing for sea off Portsmouth at the commencement of the war, I left the place with melancholy forebodings. The American war was still fresh in memory. The struggle which was beginning, and which many thought would be brought to a speedy close by the irresistible arms of Great Britain being added to those of the allies, I was assured in my own mind would be of long continuance, and productive of distress and misery beyond all possible calculation. This conviction was pressed upon me by having been a witness, during a long residence in revolutionary France, of the spirit which prevailed in that country. After leaving the Isle of Wight, I spent two days in wandering on foot over Salisbury Plain, which, though cultivation was then widely spread through parts of it, had upon the whole a still more impressive appearance than it now retains.

The monuments and traces of antiquity, scattered in abundance over that region, led me unavoidably to compare what we know or guess of those remote times with certain aspects of modern society, and with calamities, principally those consequent upon war, to which, more than other classes of men, the poor are subject. In those reflections, joined with particular facts that had come to my knowledge, the following stanzas originated.

In conclusion, to obviate some distraction in the minds of those who are well acquainted with Salisbury Plain, it may be proper to say, that of the features described as belonging to it, one or two are taken from other desolate parts of England.

I

A TRAVELLER on the skirt of Sarum's Plain

Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare;

Stooping his gait, but not as if to gain Help from the staff he bore; for mien and air

Were hardy, though his cheek seemed worn with care

Both of the time to come, and time long fled:

Down fell in straggling locks his thin grey hair;

A coat he wore of military red

But faded, and stuck o'er with many a patch and shred.