'A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread:
For he on honey-dew hath fed,' &c. &c.
There is a good deal more altogether as exquisite--and in particular a
fine description of a wood, 'ancient as the hills;' and 'folding sunny
spots of _greenery_!' But we suppose this specimen will be sufficient.
Persons in this poet's unhappy condition, generally feel the want of
sleep as the worst of their evils; but there are instances, too, in the
history of the disease, of sleep being attended with new agony, as if
the waking thoughts, how wild and turbulent soever, had still been under
some slight restraint, which sleep instantly removed. Mr Coleridge
appears to have experienced this symptom, if we may judge from the title
of his third poem, '_The Pains of Sleep_;' and, in truth, from its
composition--which is mere raving, without any thing more affecting than
a number of incoherent words, expressive of extravagance and
incongruity.--We need give no specimen of it.
Upon the whole, we look upon this publication as one of the most notable
pieces of impertinence of which the press has lately been guilty; and
one of the boldest experiments that has yet been made on the patience or
understanding of the public. It is impossible, however, to dismiss it,
without a remark or two. The other productions of the Lake School have
generally exhibited talents thrown away upon subjects so mean, that no
power of genius could ennoble them; or perverted and rendered useless by
a false theory of poetical composition. But even in the worst of them,
if we except the White Doe of Mr Wordsworth and some of the laureate
odes, there were always some gleams of feeling or of fancy. But the
thing now before us is utterly destitute of value. It exhibits from
beginning to end not a ray of genius; and we defy any man to point out a
passage of poetical merit in any of the three pieces which it contains,
except, perhaps, the following lines in p. 32, and even these are not
very brilliant; nor is the leading thought original--
'Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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