by Coleridge · Cluster: Terror and Horror · Madness
Abstract
A sequence of poetic fragments on confinement, nature, the moon, snow, the grave and madness; imagistic ‘studies’ for longer poems blending despair and natural description.
Connections
Motifs: Nature, Moon, Winter, Grave, Madness (2), Animals Themes & Concepts: Madness, Melancholy Forms & Genres: Fragment
Testo integrale / Full text
In darkness I remain’d — the neighb’ring clock
Told me that now the rising sun shone lovely
On my garden.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 279. Compare Osorio, Act I, lines
219-21 (ante, p. 528), and Remorse, Act I, Scene II, lines 218- 20
(ante, p. 830).
The Sun (for now his orb ‘gan slowly sink)
Shot half his rays aslant the heath whose flowers
Purpled the mountain’s broad and level top;
Rich was his bed of clouds, and wide beneath
Expecting Ocean smiled with dimpled face.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 278. Compare This Lime-Tree Bower
(1797), lines 32-7 (ante, pp. 179, 180).
Leanness, disquietude, and secret Pangs.
First published in Notizbuch, p. 351.
Smooth, shining, and deceitful as thin Ice.
First published in Notizbuch, p. 355.
Wisdom, Mother of retired Thought.
First published in 1893.
Nature wrote Rascal on his face,
By chalcographic art!
First published in 1893.
In this world we dwell among the tombs
And touch the pollutions of the Dead.
First published in 1893. Compare Destiny of Nations, ll. 177- 8
(ante, p. 137).
The mild despairing of a Heart resigned.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 278.
Such fierce vivacity as fires the eye
Of Genius fancy-craz’d.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 278. Compare Destiny of Nations,
ll. 257, 258 (ante, p. 139).
—— like a mighty Giantess
Seiz’d in sore travail and prodigious birth
Sick Nature struggled: long and strange her pangs;
Her groans were horrible, but O! most fair
The Twins she bore — EQUALITY and PEACE!
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 278. Compare concluding lines of the
second strophe of Ode to the Departing Year, 4{o}, 1796.
Discontent
Mild as an infant low-plaining in its sleep.
First published in 1893.
—— terrible and loud,
As the strong Voice that from the Thunder-cloud
Speaks to the startled Midnight.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 278.
The swallows
Interweaving there, mid the pair’d sea-mews
At distance wildly-wailing!
First published in 1893.
The Brook runs over sea-weeds.
Sabbath day — from the Miller’s merry wheel
The water-drops dripp’d leisurely.
First published in 1893. It is possible the Fragments were some of the
‘studies’ for The Brook. See Biog. Lit., Cap. X, ed. 1907, i. 129.
On the broad mountain-top
The neighing wild-colt races with the wind
O’er fern and heath-flowers.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 278.
A long deep lane
So overshadow’d, it might seem one bower —
The damp clay-banks were furr’d with mouldy moss.
First published in 1893.
Broad-breasted Pollards, with broad-branching heads.
First published in 1893.
‘Twas sweet to know it only possible —
Some wishes cross’d my mind and dimly cheer’d it —
And one or two poor melancholy Pleasures —
In these, the pale unwarming light of Hope
Silv’ring their flimsy wing, flew silent by,
Moths in the Moonlight.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 277, 278.
Behind the thin
Grey cloud that cover’d but not hid the sky
The round full moon look’d small.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 277. Compare Christabel, ll. 16, 17
(ante, p. 216).
The subtle snow
In every breeze rose curling from the Grove
Like pillars of cottage smoke.
First published in Lit. Rem., i. 278.
The Subtle snow in every passing breeze
Rose curling from the grove like shafts of smoke.
L. R.
The sunshine lies on the cottage-wall,
A-shining thro’ the snow.
First published in 1893.
A MANIAC in the woods — She crosses heedlessly the woodman’s
path — scourg’d by rebounding boughs.
First published in 1893.
Compare this with discarded stanza in ‘Introduction to the Tale of the
Dark Ladié’ as printed in the Morning Post, Dec. 21, 1799 (vide
ante, p. 333).
And how he cross’d the woodman’s paths,
Thro’ briars and swampy mosses beat;
How boughs rebounding scourg’d his limbs,
And low stubs gor’d his feet.
Note by J. D. Campbell, P. W., 1893, p. 456.