Chapter XLVIII: Letter 42: November 1, 1796

My beloved Poole,

Many "causes" have concurred to prevent my writing to you, but all together they do not amount to a "reason". I have seen a narrow-necked bottle, so full of water, that when turned up side down not a drop has fallen out--something like this has been the case with me. My heart has been full, yea, crammed with anxieties about my residence near you. I so ardently desire it, that any disappointment would chill all my faculties, like the fingers of death. And entertaining wishes so irrationally strong, I necessarily have "day"-mair dreams that something will prevent it--so that since I quitted you, I have been gloomy as the month which even now has begun to lower and rave on us. I verily believe, or rather I have no doubt that I should have written to you within the period of my promise, if I had not pledged myself for a certain gift of my Muse to poor Tommy: and alas! she has been too "sunk on the ground in dimmest heaviness" to permit me to trifle. Yet intending it hourly I deferred my letter "a la mode" the procrastinator! Ah! me, I wonder not that the hours fly so sweetly by me--for they pass unfreighted with the duties which they came to demand!

* * * I wrote a long letter to Dr. Crompton, and received from him a very kind letter, which I will send you in the parcel I am about to convey by Milton.

My "Poems" are come to a second edition, that is the first edition is sold. I shall alter the lines of the "Joan of Arc", and make "one" poem entitled "Progress of European Liberty, a Vision";--the first line "Auspicious Reverence! hush all meaner song," etc. and begin the volume with it. Then the "Chatterton,--Pixies' Parlour,--Effusions 27 and 28--To a young Ass--Tell me on what holy ground--The Sigh--Epitaph on an Infant--The Man of Ross--Spring in a Village--Edmund--Lines with a poem on the French Revolution"--Seven Sonnets, namely, those at pp. 45, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66--"Shurton Bars--My pensive Sara--Low was our pretty Cot--Religious Musings";--these in the order I have placed them. Then another title-page with "Juvenilia" on it, and an advertisement signifying that the Poems were retained by the desire of some friends, but that they are to be considered as being in the Author's own opinion of very inferiour merit. In this sheet will be "Absence--La Fayette--Genevieve--Kosciusko--Autumnal Moon--To the Nightingale--Imitation of Spenser--A Poem written in early youth". All the others will be finally and totally omitted. It is strange that in the "Sonnet to Schiller" I should have written--"that hour I would have wished to 'die'--Lest--aught more mean might stamp me 'mortal';"--the bull never struck me till Charles Lloyd mentioned it. The sense is evident enough, but the word is ridiculously ambiguous.

Lloyd is a very good fellow, and most certainly a young man of great genius. He desires his kindest love to you. I will write again by Milton, for I really can write no more now--I am so depressed. But I will fill up the letter with poetry of mine, or Lloyd's, or Southey's. Is your Sister married? May the Almighty bless her!--may he enable her to make all her new friends as pure, and mild, and amiable as herself!--I pray in the fervency of my soul. Is your dear Mother well? My filial respects to her. Remember me to Ward. David Hartley Coleridge is stout, healthy, and handsome. He is the very miniature of me. Your grateful and affectionate friend and brother,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Speaking of lines by Mr. Southey, called "Inscription for the Cenotaph at Ermenonville",[1] written in his letter, Mr. C. says, "This is beautiful, but instead of Ermenonville and Rousseau put Valchiusa and Petrarch. I do not particularly admire Rousseau. Bishop Taylor, old Baxter, David Hartley, and the Bishop of Cloyne are my men."

The following Sonnet, transcribed in the foregoing Letter, has not been printed. "It puts in," he says, "no claim to poetry, but it is a most faithful picture of my feelings on a very interesting event." See the Letter to Mr. Poole of 24th September, 1796. This Sonnet shows in a remarkable way how little the Unitarianism, which Mr. C. professed at this time, operated on his fundamental "feelings" as a catholic Christian.

"On receiving a Letter informing me of the birth of a Son."

When they did greet me Father, sudden awe
Weigh'd down my spirit: I retir'd and knelt
Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt
No heavenly visitation upwards draw
My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart.
Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought
Th' unquiet silence of confused thought
And hopeless feelings: my o'erwhelmed heart
Trembled, and vacant tears stream'd down my face.
And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend,
Lover of souls! and groan for future grace,
That, ere my babe youth's perilous maze have trod,
Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend,
And he be born again, a child of God!

It was not till the summer of 1797 that the second edition Of Mr. C.'s Poems actually appeared, before which time he had seen occasion to make many alterations in the proposed arrangement of, and had added some of his most beautiful compositions to, the collection. It is curious, however, that he never varied the diction of the Sonnet to Schiller in the particular to which he refers in the preceding Letter. [2]

[Footnote 1: Afterwards included among the "Minor Poems" of Mr. S.--S. C.]

[Footnote 2: See Dykes-Campbell's edition of Coleridge's "Poems", p. 572.]