p. 27. _Christabel_. Coleridge at his best represents the imaginative temper in its essence, pure gold, with only just enough alloy to give it firm bodily substance. "Christabel" is not, like "Kubla Khan," a disembodied ecstasy, but a coherent effort of the imagination. Yet, when we come to the second part, the magic is already half gone out of it. Rossetti says, in a printed letter, with admirable truth: "The conception, and partly the execution, of the passage in which Christabel repeats by fascination the serpent-glance of Geraldine, is magnificent; but that is the only good narrative passage in part two. The rest seems to have reached a fatal facility of jingling, at the heels whereof followed Scott." A few of the lines seem to sink almost lower than Scott, and suggest a Gilbert parody: "He bids thee come without delay With all thy numerous array. * * * * * And he will meet thee on the way With all his numerous array." But in the conclusion, which has nothing whatever to do with the poem, Coleridge is his finest self again: a magical psychologist. It is interesting to know that Crashaw was the main influence upon Coleridge while writing "Christabel," and that the "Hymn to the Name and Honour of the admirable S. Teresa" was "ever present to his mind while writing the second part." p. 61. _Love_. This poem was originally published, in the _Morning Post_ of December 21, 1799, as part of an "Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladié." This introduction begins: "O leave the lily on its stem; O leave the rose upon the spray; O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids! And listen to my lay. A cypress and a myrtle bough This morn around my harp you twined, Because it fashion'd mournfully Its murmurs in the wind. And now a tale of love and woe, A woeful tale of love I sing; Hark, gentle maidens! hark, it sighs And trembles on the string."