to him. Αὔριον ἅδιον ἄσω but the tomorrow is yet to

come.

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
10 And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted

15 As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;

20 Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
25 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

30 Ancestral voices prophesying war!

35

40

45

60

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,
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,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Page 1.

CHRISTABEL.

NOTES.

PREFACE.

Coleridge's memory was at fault concerning the year in which the poem was written. The real date was 1798. This is proved by the Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth, from January to May, 1798. This Journal is full of jottings which promptly found their way into Coleridge's verse. The following passage in The

Prelude, Book 14, line 392 seq., also by the context indicates 1798 for the year:

Beloved Friend

When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view
Than any liveliest sight of yesterday,
That summer, under whose indulgent skies
Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs,
Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes
Didst utter of the Lady Christabel.

The celebrated poets: This refers to Scott and Byron. Between 1805-1810 Scott had delighted the world with verse romances, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lady of the Lake, and Marmion. But his star had paled before that of Byron, who in 1813 began with The Giaour a series of romantic tales that gained tremendous though temporary popularity. No one today would think of classifying Christabel with either group. It belongs to a distinct and higher order of poetry.

The metre of Christabel: Wordsworth said, reported by Mr. Justice Coleridge, that he attributed Coleridge's writing so little to the extreme care and labor which he applied in elaborating his metres. He said that when Coleridge was intent on a new experiment in metre, the time and labor he bestowed were inconceivable; that he was quite an epicure of sound.

PART I.

Line 3. Each of these four syllables is accented so that the rhythm is the same as that of the preceding line, which gives us two anapests and two iambs, eleven syllables. Line 10 has three dactyls and a trochee. Coleridge's daring method, described in his preface, yields enchanting results, and the variations in the metre should be carefully studied.

16. The thin gray cloud: Here we can see the poet's imagination working slowly toward the perfect expression. Dorothy's journal for January 31 describes a sky effect seen by the friends. The moon "was immensely large, the sky scattered over with clouds; these soon closed in, contracting the dimensions of the moon without concealing her." In the spring Coleridge's notebook has the following lines:

Behind the thin

Gray cloud that covered but not hid the sky

The round, full moon looked small.

Both passages show fine, sensitive observation, but the magic comes with the perfect word and movement of the passage as it stands.

49-52. Again the germ is in Dorothy Wordsworth's journal: "March 7, 1798. William and I drank tea at Coleridge's. A cloudy sky. Observed nothing particularly interesting-the distant prospect obscured. One only leaf upon the top of a tree-the sole remaining leaf-danced round and round like a rag blown by the wind."

58-65. The present text is that of the revision made by Coleridge in 1828-29. In 1816 this passage read:

There she sees a damsel bright

Drest in a silken robe of white;

Her neck, her feet, her arms were bare,
And the jewels disordered in her hair.

104-122.

The passage in 1816 ran thus:

Then Christabel stretch'd forth her hand
And comforted fair Geraldine,

Saying, that she should command

The service of Sir Leoline;

And straight be convoy'd, free from thrall,
Back to her noble father's hall.

So up she rose, and forth they pass'd,
With hurrying steps, yet nothing fast;
Her lucky stars the lady blest,

And Christabel she sweetly said—
All our household are at rest,
Each one sleeping on his bed;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,

And may not well awaken'd be;

So to my room we'll creep in stealth,

And you tonight must sleep with me.

Here every change is an improvement. The direct speech connotes a more alert imagination, placing us within ear-shot of the dialogue instead of coldly reporting it to us. Line 113 is more suggestive of some strong power abroad than is the old version. "Gracious" has dignity that "lucky" lacks. "Each one sleeping" is tautological. "Silent as the cell" helps the religious atmosphere which Coleridge subtly throws about Christabel ; and the last couplet is far more delicate than the original form.

129. It was an old tradition that evil things could not pass a threshold.

175 seq.

St. Agnes.

Cf. the maiden chamber of Madeline in Keats' Eve of

203. Some see in this line a hint that Geraldine herself may have been no creature of darkness, though under an evil spell.

218-219. The original version was so bad that it is hard to believe it authentic.

The lady wiped her moist, cold brow,

And faintly said, "I am better Low."

This and many other variant passages not quoted here, show that Coleridge's treatment was at first more colloquial and less imaginative than it became at the last, and that much of the exquisite detail was the result of careful revision.

226. The hints continue, that Geraldine would not have harmed Christabel could she have helped it. The wine made by Christabel's mother seems again for a moment to restore her to her better self. 252. A definite description of Geraldine's side, "lean and old and foul of hue," is in one of the manuscripts of the poem. Coleridge did far better to allow our shuddering imagination to play in freedom.

(306. Tairn: 1310. Fell:

CONCLUSION TO PART I.

These are Lake Country words used for the first time in the poem. The use of them might imply that this Conclusion was not written before 1800, when Coleridge had moved to this region and become familiar with its phrases.

318. In October, 1801, Coleridge notes this habit of his baby son Derwent. Cf. also his poem The Nightingale, lines 101-103. He knows well

The evening-star: and once, when he awoke

In most distressful mood (some inward pain

Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream),

I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,

And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once,

Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,

While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears,
Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam!

PART II.

Coleridge said that the inspiration for this part was given him by Crashaw's Hymn to Saint Teresa, especially the passage describing Teresa's journey as a little girl, when she ran away from home to seek martyrdom among the Moors. "Those verses," says Coleridge, "were ever present to my mind whilst writing the second part of Christabel, if indeed by some subtle process of the mind they did not suggest the first thought of the whole poem."

344.

Part II is a Lake Country poem. The scene is laid, not in the conventional mediæval castle, but in Langdale Hall and the familiar region dear to the brother poets and richly celebrated by Wordsworth.