by Coleridge · Cluster: Ghosts · Ghost · Death and Love
Abstract
Ossianic lyric of a lamenting maiden in a sea-cave visited by the ghost of the departed; lyric on grief, loss and the consoling/disturbed dream of the dead.
Connections
Archetypes: Ghost Motifs: Sea, Ghosts, Dreams, Storm Themes & Concepts: Grief and Loss, Melancholy Forms & Genres: Lyric Settings: Sea (2)
Testo integrale / Full text
How long will ye round me be swelling,
O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor beneath the cold blast of the tree.
Through the high-sounding halls of Cathlóma 5
In the steps of my beauty I strayed;
The warriors beheld Ninathóma,
And they blesséd the white-bosom’d Maid!
A Ghost! by my cavern it darted!
In moon-beams the Spirit was drest — 10
For lovely appear the Departed
When they visit the dreams of my rest!
But disturb’d by the tempest’s commotion
Fleet the shadowy forms of delight —
Ah cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean! 15
To howl through my cavern by night.
1793.