These dreams, with all their mockery of
guilt, rage, unworthy desires, remorse, shame, and terror, formed at the
time the subject of some Verses, which I had forgotten till the return of
my complaint, and which I will send you in my next as a curiosity.
guilt, rage, unworthy desires, remorse, shame, and terror, formed at the
time the subject of some Verses, which I had forgotten till the return of
my complaint, and which I will send you in my next as a curiosity.
Coleridge - Poems
The eighteenth-century smooth force
and pungency of the main part of it ends in an anticipation of the
burlesque energy of some of Mr. George Meredith's most characteristic
verse. Anyone coming upon the lines:
"More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt,
Impearling a tame wild-cat's whiskered jaws,"
would have assigned them without hesitation to the writer of "A Certain
People" and other sonnets in the "Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth. "
p. 158. _Ne plus ultra_. This mysterious fragment is one of the most
original experiments which Coleridge ever made, both in metre and in
language (abstract terms becoming concrete through intellectual passion)
and may seem to anticipate "The Unknown Eros. "
p. 164. _The Pains of Sleep_. In a letter to Sir George and Lady
Beaumont, dated September 22, 1803, Coleridge wrote, describing his journey
to Scotland: "With the night my horrors commence. During the whole of my
journey three nights out of four I have fallen asleep struggling and
resolving to lie awake, and, awaking, have blest the scream which delivered
me from the reluctant sleep. . . .
These dreams, with all their mockery of
guilt, rage, unworthy desires, remorse, shame, and terror, formed at the
time the subject of some Verses, which I had forgotten till the return of
my complaint, and which I will send you in my next as a curiosity. "
p. 169. _Names_. Coleridge was as careless as the Elizabethans in
acknowledging the originals of the poems which he translated, whether, as
in this case, he was almost literal, or, as in the case of the Chamouni
poem, he used his material freely. The lines "On a Cataract" are said to be
"improved from Stolberg" in the edition of 1848, edited by Mrs. H. N.
Coleridge; and the title may suit the whole of them.
p. 182. Answer to a Child's Question. I have omitted the four lines,
printed in brackets in Campbell's edition, which were omitted, I think
rightly, by Coleridge in reprinting the poem from the _Morning Post_
of October 16, 1802.
p. 183. _Lines on a Child_.
and pungency of the main part of it ends in an anticipation of the
burlesque energy of some of Mr. George Meredith's most characteristic
verse. Anyone coming upon the lines:
"More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt,
Impearling a tame wild-cat's whiskered jaws,"
would have assigned them without hesitation to the writer of "A Certain
People" and other sonnets in the "Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth. "
p. 158. _Ne plus ultra_. This mysterious fragment is one of the most
original experiments which Coleridge ever made, both in metre and in
language (abstract terms becoming concrete through intellectual passion)
and may seem to anticipate "The Unknown Eros. "
p. 164. _The Pains of Sleep_. In a letter to Sir George and Lady
Beaumont, dated September 22, 1803, Coleridge wrote, describing his journey
to Scotland: "With the night my horrors commence. During the whole of my
journey three nights out of four I have fallen asleep struggling and
resolving to lie awake, and, awaking, have blest the scream which delivered
me from the reluctant sleep. . . .
These dreams, with all their mockery of
guilt, rage, unworthy desires, remorse, shame, and terror, formed at the
time the subject of some Verses, which I had forgotten till the return of
my complaint, and which I will send you in my next as a curiosity. "
p. 169. _Names_. Coleridge was as careless as the Elizabethans in
acknowledging the originals of the poems which he translated, whether, as
in this case, he was almost literal, or, as in the case of the Chamouni
poem, he used his material freely. The lines "On a Cataract" are said to be
"improved from Stolberg" in the edition of 1848, edited by Mrs. H. N.
Coleridge; and the title may suit the whole of them.
p. 182. Answer to a Child's Question. I have omitted the four lines,
printed in brackets in Campbell's edition, which were omitted, I think
rightly, by Coleridge in reprinting the poem from the _Morning Post_
of October 16, 1802.
p. 183. _Lines on a Child_.
