The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poems, Plays, Essays, Lectures, Autobiography & Personal Letters (Illustrated). Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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СКАЧАТЬ Fretting the fever round the languid heart,

       And groans, which, as they said, would make a dead man start.

      These things just served to stir the torpid sense,

       Nor pain nor pity in my bosom raised.

       Memory, though slow, returned with strength: and thence

       Dismissed, again on open day I gazed,

       At houses, men, and common light, amazed.

       The lanes I sought, and as the sun retired,

       Came, where beneath the trees a faggot blazed;

       The wild brood saw me weep, my fate enquired,

       And gave me food, and rest, more welcome, more desired.

      My heart is touched to think that men like these,

       The rude earth’s tenants, were my first relief:

       How kindly did they paint their vagrant ease!

       And their long holiday that feared not grief,

       For all belonged to all, and each was chief.

       No plough their sinews strained; on grating road

       No wain they drove, and yet, the yellow sheaf

       In every vale for their delight was stowed:

       For them, in nature’s meads, the milky udder flowed,

      Semblance, with straw and panniered ass, they made

       Of potters wandering on from door to door:

       But life of happier sort to me pourtrayed,

       And other joys my fancy to allure;

       The bagpipe dinning on the midnight moor

       In barn uplighted, and companions boon

       Well met from far with revelry secure,

       In depth of forest glade, when jocund June

       Rolled fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.

      But ill it suited me, in journey dark

       O’er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch;

       To charm the surly house-dog’s faithful bark,

       Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch;

       The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,

       The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill,

       And ear still busy on its nightly watch,

       Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill;

       Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.

      What could I do, unaided and unblest?

       Poor Father! gone was every friend of thine:

       And kindred of dead husband are at best

       Small help, and, after marriage such as mine,

       With little kindness would to me incline.

       Ill was I then for toil or service fit:

       With tears whose course no effort could confine,

       By highway side forgetful would I sit

       Whole hours, my idle arms in moping sorrow knit.

      I lived upon the mercy of the fields

       And oft of cruelty the sky accused;

       On hazard, or what general bounty yields.

       Now coldly given, now utterly refused,

       The fields I for my bed have often used:

       But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth

       Is, that I have my inner self abused,

       Foregone the home delight of constant truth,

       And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.

      Three years a wanderer, often have I view’d,

       In tears, the sun towards that country tend

       Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude:

       And now across this moor my steps I bend —

       Oh! tell me whither — for no earthly friend

       Have I. — She ceased, and weeping turned away,

       As if because her tale was at an end

       She wept; — because she had no more to say

       Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay.

THE DUNGEON.

       Table of Contents

      By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

      And this place our forefathers made for man!

       This is the process of our love and wisdom

       To each poor brother who offends against us —

       Most innocent, perhaps — and what if guilty?

       Is this the only cure? Merciful God!

       Each pore and natural outlet shrivell’d up

       By ignorance and parching poverty,

       His energies roll back upon his heart,

       And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,

       They break out on him, like a loathsome plague spot.

       Then we call in our pamper’d mountebanks —

       And this is their best cure! uncomforted.

      And friendless solitude, groaning and tears.

       And savage faces, at the clanking hour,

       Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,

       By the lamp’s dismal twilight! So he lies

       Circled with evil, till his very soul

       Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed

       By sights of ever more deformity!

      With other ministrations thou, O nature!’

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