And now a tale of love and woe,
A woeful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens!
A woeful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens!
Coleridge - Poems
Yet, when we
come to the second part, the magic is already half gone out of it. Rossetti
says, in a printed letter, with admirable truth: "The conception, and
partly the execution, of the passage in which Christabel repeats by
fascination the serpent-glance of Geraldine, is magnificent; but that is
the only good narrative passage in part two. The rest seems to have reached
a fatal facility of jingling, at the heels whereof followed Scott. " A few
of the lines seem to sink almost lower than Scott, and suggest a Gilbert
parody:
"He bids thee come without delay
With all thy numerous array.
* * * * *
And he will meet thee on the way
With all his numerous array. "
But in the conclusion, which has nothing whatever to do with the poem,
Coleridge is his finest self again: a magical psychologist. It is
interesting to know that Crashaw was the main influence upon Coleridge
while writing "Christabel," and that the "Hymn to the Name and Honour of
the admirable S. Teresa" was "ever present to his mind while writing the
second part. "
p. 61. _Love_. This poem was originally published, in the _Morning
Post_ of December 21, 1799, as part of an "Introduction to the Tale of
the Dark Ladie. " This introduction begins:
"O leave the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.
A cypress and a myrtle bough
This morn around my harp you twined,
Because it fashion'd mournfully
Its murmurs in the wind.
And now a tale of love and woe,
A woeful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens! hark, it sighs
And trembles on the string. "
p. 65. _The Three Graves_. Coleridge only published what he calls "the
following humble fragment" of what was to have been a poem in six parts;
but he wrote an imperfect sketch of the first two parts, which was
published from the original MS. by Dykes Campbell in his edition. The poem
as Coleridge left it is sufficiently complete, and I have ventured to
divide it into Part I. and Part II. , instead of the usual Part III. and
Part IV. It is Coleridge's one attempt to compete with Wordsworth on what
Wordsworth considered his own ground, and it was first published by
Coleridge in _The Friend_ of September 21, 1809, on the advice of
Wordsworth and Southey. "The language," we are told in an introductory
note, "was intended to be dramatic; that is, suited to the narrator; and
the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore
presented as the fragment, not of a poem, but of a common Ballad-tale.
Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any
metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in
some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no
way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction.
come to the second part, the magic is already half gone out of it. Rossetti
says, in a printed letter, with admirable truth: "The conception, and
partly the execution, of the passage in which Christabel repeats by
fascination the serpent-glance of Geraldine, is magnificent; but that is
the only good narrative passage in part two. The rest seems to have reached
a fatal facility of jingling, at the heels whereof followed Scott. " A few
of the lines seem to sink almost lower than Scott, and suggest a Gilbert
parody:
"He bids thee come without delay
With all thy numerous array.
* * * * *
And he will meet thee on the way
With all his numerous array. "
But in the conclusion, which has nothing whatever to do with the poem,
Coleridge is his finest self again: a magical psychologist. It is
interesting to know that Crashaw was the main influence upon Coleridge
while writing "Christabel," and that the "Hymn to the Name and Honour of
the admirable S. Teresa" was "ever present to his mind while writing the
second part. "
p. 61. _Love_. This poem was originally published, in the _Morning
Post_ of December 21, 1799, as part of an "Introduction to the Tale of
the Dark Ladie. " This introduction begins:
"O leave the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.
A cypress and a myrtle bough
This morn around my harp you twined,
Because it fashion'd mournfully
Its murmurs in the wind.
And now a tale of love and woe,
A woeful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens! hark, it sighs
And trembles on the string. "
p. 65. _The Three Graves_. Coleridge only published what he calls "the
following humble fragment" of what was to have been a poem in six parts;
but he wrote an imperfect sketch of the first two parts, which was
published from the original MS. by Dykes Campbell in his edition. The poem
as Coleridge left it is sufficiently complete, and I have ventured to
divide it into Part I. and Part II. , instead of the usual Part III. and
Part IV. It is Coleridge's one attempt to compete with Wordsworth on what
Wordsworth considered his own ground, and it was first published by
Coleridge in _The Friend_ of September 21, 1809, on the advice of
Wordsworth and Southey. "The language," we are told in an introductory
note, "was intended to be dramatic; that is, suited to the narrator; and
the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore
presented as the fragment, not of a poem, but of a common Ballad-tale.
Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any
metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in
some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no
way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction.
