by Coleridge · Cluster: Sun · Light and Dark · Fire
Abstract
A defence of Berengar, who recanted under fear of torture, urging that we judge the man within his dark age and not scorn the timid dawn of truth. Themes: faith and doubt, conscience, martyrdom, progress of truth.
Connections
Motifs: Dawn, Light and Dark Themes & Concepts: Faith and Doubt, Conscience, Martyrdom, Critique of Progress Historical References: Reformation
Testo integrale / Full text
Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, 5
Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said:
I see a hope spring from that humble fear.
All are not strong alike through storms to steer
Right onward. What? though dread of threatened death
And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath 10
Inconstant to the truth within thy heart!
That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,
Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,
Or not so vital as to claim thy life:
And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew 15
Where lay the difference ‘twixt the false and true!
Ye, who secure ‘mid trophies not your own,
Judge him who won them when he stood alone,
And proudly talk of recreant Berengare —
O first the age, and then the man compare! 20
That age how dark! congenial minds how rare!
No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn!
No throbbing hearts awaited his return!
Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell,
He only disenchanted from the spell, 25
Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:
And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?
The ascending day-star with a bolder eye 30
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn!
Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry
The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn;
Lest so we tempt th’ approaching Noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapours of our Morn. 35
? 1826.