Fears in Solitude
- A green and silent spot, amid the hills,
- A small and silent dell ! O'er stiller place
- No singing sky-lark ever poised himself.
- The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,
- Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on,
- All golden with the never-bloomless furze,
- Which now blooms most profusely : but the dell,
- Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate
- As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax,
- When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve,
- The level sunshine glimmers with green light.
- Oh ! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook !
- Which all, methinks, would love ; but chiefly he,
- The humble man, who, in his youthful years,
- Knew just so much of folly, as had made
- His early manhood more securely wise !
- Here he might lie on fern or withered heath,
- While from the singing lark (that sings unseen
- The minstrelsy that solitude loves best),
- And from the sun, and from the breezy air,
- Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame ;
- And he, with many feelings, many thoughts,
- Made up a meditative joy, and found
- Religious meanings in the forms of Nature !
- And so, his senses gradually wrapt
- In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,
- And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark,
- That singest like an angel in the clouds !
- My God ! it is a melancholy thing
-
- For such a man, who would full fain preserve
- His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel
- For all his human brethren--O my God !
- It weighs upon the heart, that he must think
- What uproar and what strife may now be stirring
- This way or that way o'er these silent hills--
- Invasion, and the thunder and the shout,
- And all the crash of onset ; fear and rage,
- And undetermined conflict--even now,
- Even now, perchance, and in his native isle :
- Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun !
- We have offended, Oh ! my countrymen !
- We have offended very grievously,
- And been most tyrannous. From east to west
- A groan of accusation pierces Heaven !
- The wretched plead against us ; multitudes
- Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
- Our brethren ! Like a cloud that travels on,
- Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,
- Even so, my countrymen ! have we gone forth
- And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,
- And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint
- With slow perdition murders the whole man,
- His body and his soul ! Meanwhile, at home,
- All individual dignity and power
- Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions,
- Associations and Societies,
- A vain, speach-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,
- One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,
- We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,
- Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth ;
- Contemptuous of all honourable rule,
- Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's life
- For gold, as at a market ! The sweet words
- Of Christian promise, words that even yet
- Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,
- Are muttered o'er by men, whose tones proclaim
- How flat and wearisome they feel their trade :
- Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent
- To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.
- Oh ! blasphemous ! the Book of Life is made
- A superstitious instrument, on which
- We gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break ;
- For all must swear--all and in every place,
- College and wharf, council and justice-court ;
- All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,
- Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,
- The rich, the poor, the old man and the young ;
- All, all make up one scheme of perjury,
- That faith doth reel ; the very name of God
- Sounds like a juggler's charm ; and, bold with joy,
- Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
- (Portentious sight !) the owlet Atheism,
- Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
- Drops his blue-fringéd lids, and holds them close,
- And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,
- Cries out, ‘Where is it ?’
- Thankless too for peace,
-
- (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)
- Secure from actual warfare, we have loved
- To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war !
- Alas ! for ages ignorant of all
- Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague,
- Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,)
- We, this whole people, have been clamorous
- For war and bloodshed ; animating sports,
- The which we pay for as a thing to talk of,
- Spectators and not combatants ! No guess
- Anticipative of a wrong unfelt,
- No speculation on contingency,
- However dim and vague, too vague and dim
- To yield a justifying cause ; and forth,
- (Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,
- And adjurations of the God in Heaven,)
- We send our mandates for the certain death
- Of thousands and ten thousands ! Boys and girls,
- And women, that would groan to see a child
- Pull off an insect's wing, all read of war,
- The best amusement for our morning meal !
- The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
- From curses, and who knows scarcely words enough
- To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
- Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
- And technical in victories and defeats,
- And all our dainty terms for fratricide ;
- Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues
- Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
- We join no feeling and attach no form !
- As if the soldier died without a wound ;
- As if the fibres of this godlike frame
- Were gored without a pang ; as if the wretch,
- Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,
- Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed ;
- As though he had no wife to pine for him,
- No God to judge him ! Therefore, evil days
- Are coming on us, O my countrymen !
- And what if all-avenging Providence,
- Strong and retributive, should make us know
- The meaning of our words, force us to feel
- The desolation and the agony
- Of our fierce doings ?
- Spare us yet awhile,
-
- Father and God ! O ! spare us yet awhile !
- Oh ! let not English women drag their flight
- Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes,
- Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday
- Laughed at the breast ! Sons, brothers, husbands, all
- Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms
- Which grew up with you round the same fire-side,
- And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells
- Without the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure !
- Stand forth ! be men ! repel an impious foe,
- Impious and false, a light yet cruel race,
- Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth
- With deeds of murder ; and still promising
- Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free,
- Poison life's amities, and cheat the heart
- Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes,
- And all that lifts the spirit ! Stand we forth ;
- Render them back upon the insulted ocean,
- And let them toss as idly on its waves
- As the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blast
- Swept from our shores ! And oh ! may we return
- Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear,
- Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung
- So fierce a foe to frenzy !
- I have told,
- O Britons ! O my brethren ! I have told
- Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
- Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed ;
- For never can true courage dwell with them,
- Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
- At their own vices. We have been too long
- Dupes of a deep delusion ! Some, belike,
- Groaning with restless enmity, expect
- All change from change of constituted power ;
- As if a Government had been a robe,
- On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged
- Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe
- Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach
- A radical causation to a few
- Poor drudges of chastising Providence,
- Who borrow all their hues and qualities
- From our own folly and rank wickedness,
- Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others, meanwhile,
- Dote with a mad idolatry ; and all
- Who will not fall before their images,
- And yield them worship, they are enemies
- Even of their country !
- Such have I been deemed--
-
- But, O dear Britain ! O my Mother Isle !
- Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy
- To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,
- A husband, and a father ! who revere
- All bonds of natural love, and find them all
- Within the limits of thy rocky shores.
- O native Britain ! O my Mother Isle !
- How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy
- To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,
- Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,
- Have drunk in all my intellectual life,
- All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,
- All adoration of God in nature,
- All lovely and all honourable things,
- Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel
- The joy and greatness of its future being ?
- There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul
- Unborrowed from my country ! O divine
- And beauteous island ! thou hast been my sole
- And most magnificent temple, in the which
- I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,
- Loving the God that made me !--
- May my fears,
-
- My filial fears, be vain ! and may the vaunts
- And menace of the vengeful enemy
- Pass like the gust, that roared and died away
- In the distant tree : which heard, and only heard
- In this low dell, bowed not the delicate grass.
- But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad
-
- The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze :
- The light has left the summit of the hill,
- Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful,
- Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,
- Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot !
- On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill,
- Homeward I wind my way ; and lo ! recalled
- From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me,
- I find myself upon the brow, and pause
- Startled ! And after lonely sojourning
- In such a quiet and surrounded nook,
- This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main,
- Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty
- Of that huge amphitheatre of rich
- And elmy fields, seems like society--
- Conversing with the mind, and giving it
- A livelier impulse and a dance of thought !
- And now, belovéd Stowey ! I behold
- Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms
- Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend ;
- And close behind them, hidden from my view,
- Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe
- And my babe's mother dwell in peace ! With light
- And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend,
- Remembering thee, O green and silent dell !
- And grateful, that by nature's quietness
- And solitary musings, all my heart
- Is softened, and made worthy to indulge
- Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.
Coleridge's note
N.B. The above is perhaps not Poetry,—but rather a sort of middle thing between Poetry and Oratory—sermoni propriora.—Some parts are, I am conscious, too tame even for animated prose.
Written at Nether Stowey, 20 April 1798, during the alarm of a French invasion.
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