No More Learning

But that is lovely--looks like human Time,--
An old man with a steady look sublime,
That stops his earthly task to watch the skies;
But he is blind--a statue hath such eyes;--
Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance,
Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,
With scant white hairs, with fore top bald and high,
He gazes still,--his eyeless face all eye;--
As 'twere an organ full of silent sight,
His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light!
Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb--
He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him!
No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,
Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure,
By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all,
Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral.
A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,
Yet that is but a Purgatory curse;
Hell knows a fear far worse,
A fear--a future state;--'tis positive Negation!

1817.




METRICAL FEET

LESSON FOR A BOY

[** Macron and breve accent marks have been left off, see the note
in the Forum. ]

Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yea ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;--
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapaests throng;
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride;--
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud highbred Racer.
If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise,
And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies;
Tender warmth at his heart, with these metres to show it,
With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet,--
May crown him with fame, and must win him the love
Of his father on earth and his Father above.
My dear, dear child!
Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S. T. COLERIDGE.

1803.
THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER
DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

[FROM SCHILLER]


Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

? 1799.




THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE
DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

[FROM SCHILLER]


In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

? 1799.




CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES

[FROM MATTHISON]


Hear, my beloved, an old Milesian story! --
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skiey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it.
From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple.
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,
Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it
Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.

? 1799.




TO ----


I mix in life, and labour to seem free,
With common persons pleased and common things,
While every thought and action tends to thee,
And every impulse from thy influence springs.

? 1796.




EPITAPH
ON A BAD MAN


Under this stone does Walter Harcourt lie,
Who valued nought that God or man could give;
He lived as if he never thought to die;
He died as if he dared not hope to live!