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

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СКАЧАТЬ deeply had she drunken in

      That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,

      That all her features were resigned

      To this sole image in her mind:

      And passively did imitate

      That look of dull and treacherous hate!

      And thus she stood, in dizzy trance,

      Still picturing that look askance

      With forced unconscious sympathy

      Full before her father’s view — 610

      As far as such a look could be

      In eyes so innocent and blue!

      And when the trance was o’er, the maid

      Paused awhile, and inly prayed:

      Then falling at the Baron’s feet,

      “By my mother’s soul do I entreat

      That thou this woman send away!”

      She said: and more she could not say:

      For what she knew she could not tell,

      O’ermastered by the mighty spell. 620

      Why is thy cheek so wan and wild,

      Sir Leoline? Thy only child

      Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride,

      So fair, so innocent, so mild;

      The same, for whom thy lady died!

      O by the pangs of her dear mother

      Think thou no evil of thy child!

      For her, and thee, and for no other,

      She prayed the moment ere she died: 630

      Prayed that the babe for whom she died,

      Might prove her dear lord’s joy and pride!

       That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,

      Sir Leoline!

       And wouldst thou wrong thy only child,

      Her child and thine;

      Within the Baron’s heart and brain

      If thoughts, like these, had any share,

      They only swelled his rage and pain,

      And did but work confusion there.

      His heart was cleft with pain and rage, 640

      His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild,

      Dishonoured thus in his old age;

      Dishonoured by his only child,

      And all his hospitality

      To the wronged daughter of his friend

      By more than woman’s jealousy

      Brought thus to a disgraceful end —

      He rolled his eye with stern regard

      Upon the gentle minstrel bard,

      And said in tones abrupt, austere — 650

      “Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here?

      I bade thee hence!” The bard obeyed;

      And turning from his own sweet maid,

      The age’d knight, Sir Leoline,

      Led forth the lady Geraldine!

Conclusion to Part II

       Table of Contents

      A little child, a limber elf,

      Singing, dancing to itself,

      A fairy thing with red round cheeks,

      That always finds, and never seeks,

      Makes such a vision to the sight 660

      As fills a father’s eyes with light;

      And pleasures flow in so thick and fast

      Upon his heart, that he at last

      Must needs express his love’s excess

      With words of unmeant bitterness.

      Perhaps ‘tis pretty to force together

      Thoughts so all unlike each other;

      To mutter and mock a broken charm,

      To dally with wrong that does no harm.

      Perhaps ‘tis tender too and pretty 670

      At each wild word to feel within

      A sweet recoil of love and pity.

      And what, if in a world of sin

      (O sorrow and shame should this be true!)

      Such giddiness of heart and brain

      Comes seldom save from rage and pain,

      So talks as it’s most used to do.

      France: An Ode

       Table of Contents

      Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause,

       Whose pathless march no mortal may control!

       Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe’er ye roll,

       Yield homage only to eternal laws!

       Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing,

       Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined.

       Save when your own imperious branches swinging,

       Have made a solemn music of the wind!

       Where, like a man beloved of God,

       Through glooms, which never woodman trod,

       How oft, pursuing fancies holy,

       My moonlight way o’er flowering weeds I wound,

       Inspired, СКАЧАТЬ