O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.

Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and
shower,

Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,
A new Earth and new Heaven,

Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud-
We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight. All melodies the echoes of that voice,

All colours a suffusion from that light.

There was a time when, though my path was rough,

This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

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Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine. And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed

mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;

But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can;
And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural man-
This was my sole resource, my only plan:
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul. 93

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my

mind,

Reality's dark dream!

I turn from you, and listen to the wind,
Which long has raved unnoticed.

What a scream

Of agony by torture lengthened out

That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without,

Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree, Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers, Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry

song,

The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold!
What tell'st thou now about?

'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting

wounds

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!

But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is

Over

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!

A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight,

As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 'T is of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild,

Not far from home, but she hath lost her way: And now moans low in bitter grief and fear, And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

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'T is midnight, but small thoughts have I of

sleep:

Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep! Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,

And may this storm be but a mountain-birth, May all the stars hang bright above her

dwelling.

Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!

With light heart may she rise,

Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,

Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;

To her may all things live, from pole to pole,

Their life the eddying of her living soul!
O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

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1802.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE

"Expende Annibalem : — quot libras in duce summo
Invenies?"-Juvenal, Sat. x.

'Tis done-but yesterday a King!
And arm'd with Kings to strive-
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.

With might unquestion'd,-power to save,-
Thine only gift hath been the grave,

To those that worshipp'd thee;

Nor till thy fall could mortals guess Ambition's less than littleness!

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Thanks for that lesson-It will teach
To after-warriors more,

Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,

That led them to adore

Those Pagod things of sabre sway

With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

The triumph and the vanity,

The rapture of the strife-
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem'd made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife-

All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

The Desolator desolate!

The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate
A Suppliant for his own!

Is it some yet imperial hope
That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?
To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak,
Dream'd not of the rebound:

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