And she flings out her voice to the darksome night;

Her bosom is swelling with sorrow:

The world it is empty, the heart will die,
There's nothing to wish for beneath the sky:
Thou Holy One, call thy child away!
I've lived and loved, and that was to-day-
Make ready my grave-clothes to-morrow.

A STRANGER MINSTREL.*

S late on Skiddaw's mount I lay supine,

Midway the ascent, in that repose
divine

When the soul, centred in the heart's recess,
Hath quaff'd its fill of Nature's loveliness,
Yet still beside the fountain's marge will stay,
And fain would thirst again, again to quaff;

* To be found in the Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Robinson, 1801, and in her Poetical Works, 1806. The few variations in the latter must have been Coleridge's own, and we give the later version. Mary Robinson, "famous alike for her beauty and her misfortunes," writes, in The Athenæum, the editor of Macmillan's edition, who was the first to reprint the poem,-visited the Lakes in 1800, in December of which year she died.

"Parson Este," says Rogers, in his Table Talk,-" was well acquainted with Mrs. Robinson (the once celebrated Perdita), and said that Fox had the greatest difficulty in persuading the Prince of Wales to lend her some assistance, when, towards the close of life, she was in very straitened circumstances. Este saw her funeral, which was attended by a single mourning coach."

Then when the tear, slow travelling on its way,
Fills up the wrinkles of a silent laugh,—
In that sweet mood of sad and humorous

thought

A form within me rose, within me wrought
With such strong magic, that I cried aloud,-
"Thou ancient Skiddaw, by thy helm of cloud,
And by thy many-colour'd chasms so deep,
And by their shadows that for ever sleep;
By yon small flaky mists, that love to creep
Along the edges of those spots of light,
Those sunny islands on thy smooth green
height,

And by yon shepherds with their sheep,
And dogs and boys, a gladsome crowd,
That rush even now with clamour loud
Sudden from forth thy topmost cloud,
And by this laugh, and by this tear,
I would, old Skiddaw, she were here !
A lady of sweet song is she,

Her soft blue eye was made for thee!
O ancient Skiddaw, by this tear,

I would, I would that she were here!"

Then ancient Skiddaw, stern and proud,
In sullen majesty replying,
Thus spake from out his helm of cloud,

(His voice was like an echo dying!) :— "She dwells, belike, in scenes more fair, And scorns a mount so bleak and bare."

I only sigh'd when this I heard,

Such mournful thoughts within me stirr'd

That all my heart was faint and weak,
So sorely was I troubled!
No laughter wrinkled on my cheek,
But O the tears were doubled!

But ancient Skiddaw green and high
Heard and understood my sigh:
And now, in tones less stern and rude,
As if he wish'd to end the feud,
Spake he, the proud response renewing,
(His voice was like a monarch wooing):—

"Nay, but thou dost not know her might,
The pinions of her soul how strong!
But many a stranger in my height
Hath sung to me her magic song,
Sending forth his ecstasy
In her divinest melody,

And hence I know her soul is free,
She is where'er she wills to be,
Unfetter'd by mortality!

Now to the haunted beach' can fly,

Beside the threshold scourged with waves,

Now where the maniac wildly raves,

"Pale moon, thou spectre of the sky!'
No wind that hurries o'er my height
Can travel with so swift a flight.

I too, methinks, might merit
The presence of her spirit!
To me too might belong

The honour of her song and witching melody,

Which most resembles me,

Soft, various and sublime,

Exempt from wrongs of Time!"

Thus spake the mighty Mount, and I
Made answer, with a deep-drawn sigh:-
"Thou ancient Skiddaw, by this tear,
I would, I would that she were here!"
November, 1800.

THE MAD MONK.*

HEARD a voice from Etna's side;
Where, o'er a cavern's mouth,
That fronted to the south,

A chestnut spread its umbrage wide:

A hermit, or a monk, the man might be ;
But him I could not see:

And thus the music flow'd along,

In melody most like to old Sicilian song:

"There was a time when earth, and sea, and skies,

The bright green vale, and forest's dark re

cess,

With all things, lay before mine eyes

In steady loveliness:

* Originally printed in 1804, but there is evidence of its existence in 1800. It was given to " Perdita," before her death, for a volume she contemplated, and which her daughter produced later.

Reprinted, for the first time, in Macmillan's edition.

1 There was a time &c.] Compare with this stanza the opening lines of Wordsworth's famous Ode, Intimations of Immortality:

"There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight,

But now I feel, on earth's uneasy scene,
Such sorrows as will never cease;—

If I must live to know that such a time has been!"

A silence then ensued:

Till from the cavern came

A voice! it was the same!

And thus, in mournful tone, its dreary plaint renewed:

"Last night, as o'er the sloping turf I trod, The smooth green turf, to me a vision gave Beneath mine eyes, the sod—

The roof of Rosa's grave!

My heart has need with dreams like these to strive,

For, when I woke, beneath mine eyes I found
The plot of mossy ground,

On which we oft have sat when Rosa was alive.

To me did seem

Apparell'd in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream."

Wordsworth's Ode is dated 1803-6, but portions may have been composed earlier. Coleridge is the more likely to have been the borrower. He would hear Words worth recite the lines, would remember them, and afterwards reproduce them by a process of unconscious cerebration. We must not take Wordsworth too literally. We find him writing in 1804, in The Prelude, Book vi.,—

"Yet for me

Life's morning radiance hath not left the hills,❞—

a statement at least as true as the former one.