««• Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.'

a

"Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look,'-
(The pilot made reply).
"I am a-feared.'— Push on, push on!'
Said the Hermit cheerily.

“The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirr'd;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

“ Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread :
It reach'd the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

“ Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drown'd
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the pilot's boat.

• Upon the whirl, where sank the ship
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound

“ I moved my lips—the pilot shriek'd,
And fell down in a fit;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And pray'd where he did sit.

"I took the oars: the pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
“Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row.'

“ And now, all in my own countree,
I stood on the firm land !
The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

"O, shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
The Hermit cross'd his brow,
“Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say-
What manner of man art thou ?'

"Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

“Since then at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns,

“ I pass, like night, from land to land ;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

"What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there;
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bridesmaids singing are;
And hark, the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

“O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea :
So lonely 'twas, that God Himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

“O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company !-

“ To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

“Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

" He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunn'd,
And is of sense forlorn :
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.

NOTES

TO POEMS BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

1 By imaginary Time I meant the state of a schoolboy's mind when on his return to school he projects his being in his daydreams, and lives in his next holidays, six months hence : and this I contrasted with real Time.-S. T. COLERIDGE, in Preface to “ Sibylline Leaves," 1817.

2 Hartley Coleridge was born on the 19th of September, but his father, who was at Birmingham, did not hear the news until the 20th.

3 Probably Charles Lamb, who refers to this sonnet in Nov. 1796 as “Your last, and, in my eye, best sonnet."

4 A fragment of “The Ballad of the Dark Ladie." First published in the Morning Post, 1799, and afterwards in the second edition of the " Lyrical Ballads," 1800.

5 Tairn is a small lake, generally, if not always applied, to the lakes up in the mountains, and which are the feeders of those in the valleys. This address to the storm-wind will not appear extravagant to those who have heard it at night, and in a mountainous country.

6 The verses entitled “ Love" (page 473), which were inserted in the “ Lyrical Ballads," 1800, follow here.

7 Coleridge in his preface to Christabel, published in 1816, says, “The first part of the following poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany in the year 1800, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the latter date, my poetic powers have been, till very lately, in a state of suspended animation. But as, in my very first conception of the tale, I had the whole present to my mind, with the wholeness no less than with the liveliness of a vision, I trust that I shall be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come, in the course of the present year. It is probable that if the poem had been finished at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second parts had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect.

But for this I have only my