Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, When I with these untoward thoughts had striven, I saw a man before me unawares; The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hairs. As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie By what means it could thither come and whence, Such seemed this man, not all alive nor dead, As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage A more than human weight upon his frame had cast. Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face, That heareth not the loud winds when they call, At length, himself unsettling, he the pond A gentle answer did the old man make, In courteous speech, which forth he slowly drew: Broke from the noble orbs of his yet vivid eyes. His words came feebly from a feeble chest, Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Such as grave livers do in Scotland use, Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. He told, that to these waters he had come From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor, The old man still stood talking by my side; To give me human strength by apt admonishment. My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills, Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills, "How is it that you live, and what is it you do?" He with a smile did then his words repeat; While he was talking thus, the lonely place, In Wandering about alone and silently. While I these thoughts within myself pursued, He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed. And soon with this he other matter blended, "God," said I, "be my help and stay secure ; I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!" THE FORCE OF PRAYER; OR, THE FOUNDING OF BOLTON PRIORY. "What is good for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring "What is good for a bootless bene?" The falconer to the lady said; And she made answer, "ENDLESS SORROW!" For she knew that her son was dead. She knew it by the falconer's words, And from the look of the falconer's eye; Young Romilly through Barden woods And holds a greyhound in a leash, To let slip upon buck or doe. The pair have reached that fearful chasm,— For lordly Wharf is there pent in With rocks on either side. This striding-place is called the Strid, A thousand years hath it borne that name, And hither is young Romilly come; That he, perhaps for the hundredth time, He sprang in glee,-for what cared he That the river was strong and the rocks were steep? But the greyhound in the leash hung back, And checked him in his leap. The boy is in the arms of Wharf, Now there is stillness in the vale, If for a lover the lady wept, A solace she might borrow From death, and from the passion of death— She weeps not for the wedding-day, He was a tree that stood alone, And proudly did its branches wave; Long, long in darkness did she sit, A stately priory!" The stately priory was reared; And Wharf, as he moved along, And the lady prayed in heaviness O, there is never sorrow of heart 206 S. T. COLERIDGE. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, in 1772. At the age of seven years he lost his father, the Vicar of Ottery, a man of remarkable piety and learning. Through the instrumentality of Judge Buller, Coleridge was sent to school at Christ's Hospital, where he formed that friendship with Charles Lamb which lasted during his whole life; and where, in the midst of much privation and suffering, he picked up huge fragments of heterogeneous learning. As early as his sixteenth year the psychological character of his genius indicated itself in the remarkable poem called Time, real and imaginary. At this early period also his extraordinary conversational powers attracted attention; and the "old cloisters of Grey Friars used to re-echo," as Charles Lamb tells us, "with the discourse of the inspired charity-schoolboy" on Plotinus or Pindar. On leaving school Coleridge was entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, where his time was spent in deep but desultory study and impassioned political disquisitions. In a sudden fit of despondency, produced chiefly by the debts which he had heedlessly contracted, Coleridge left Cambridge, and enlisted as a private in a cavalry regiment; his connection with which, as might have been expected, did not last long. Having renounced his original intention of becoming a clergyman in the Established Church, Coleridge continued for some years to lecture or write pamphlets on political and ethical subjects. From the level of a half-transcendental republicanism in politics, and Unitarianism in religion, his mind gradually worked itself up into far higher views; though he seems never to have been in sympathy with any of the political parties or religious sects of the age. It was in his twenty-fifth year, and while he was residing at the foot of the Quantock hills, in Somersetshire, that the poetic genius of Coleridge reached a rapid maturity; and to this brief period a large proportion of his best poems, published originally under the title of Sibylline Leaves, belong. During this early period, i. e. about the year 1797, Coleridge also wrote his drama Remorse, his Ancient Mariner, and the first part of his Christabel. His personal appearance at this time is thus described by Mr. Hazlitt: "His complexion was clear, and even bright, 'As are the children of yon azure sheen;' his forehead was broad and high, as if built of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them, like a sea, with darkened lustre. A certain tender bloom his face o'erspread;' a purple tinge, as we see it in the pale thoughtful complexions of the Spanish portrait-painters Murillo and Velasquez. His mouth was rather open, his chin good-humoured and round, and his nose small." Assisted by the generosity of Mr. Josiah and Mr. Thomas Wedgewood, who bequeathed him a small annuity, which he received |