Dejection: An Ode
S. T. Coleridge
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms;
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.
(Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence)
1
Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
2 The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick
Spence,
3 This night, so tranquil now, will
not go hence
4 Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
5 Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
6 Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
7 Upon the strings of this {AE}olian lute,
8 Which
better far were mute.
9 For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!
10 And overspread with phantom light,
11 (With swimming phantom light o'erspread
12 But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
13 I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
14 The coming-on of rain and squally blast.
15 And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,
16 And the slant night-shower driving loud and
fast!
17 Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,
18 And sent my soul
abroad,
19 Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
20 Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!
21 A grief without a pang, void, dark,
and drear,
22 A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
23 Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
24 In word, or sigh, or
tear--
25 O Lady!
in this wan and heartless mood,
26 To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
27 All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
28 Have I been gazing on the western sky,
29 And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
30 And still I gaze--and with how blank an eye!
31 And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
32 That give away their motion to the stars;
33 Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
34 Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
35 Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew
36 In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
37 I see them all so excellently fair
38 I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!
39
My genial spirits fail;
40 And what can these avail
41 To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
42 It were a vain endeavour,
43 Though I should gaze for ever
44 On that green light that lingers in the west:
45 I may not hope from outward forms to win
46 The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
47 O Lady! we receive but what we give,
48 And in our life alone does Nature live:
49 Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
50 And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
51 Than that inanimate cold world allowed
52 To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
53 Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
54 A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
55 Enveloping the Earth--
56 And from the soul itself must there be sent
57 A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
58 Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
59 O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask
of me
60 What this strong music in the soul may be!
61 What, and wherein it doth exist,
62 This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
63 This beautiful and beauty-making power.
64 Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
65 Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
66 Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,
67 Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
68 Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
69 A new Earth and new Heaven,
70 Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud--
71 Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud--
72 We in ourselves
rejoice!
73 And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
74 All melodies the echoes of that voice,
75 All colours a suffusion from that light.
76 There was a time when, though my path
was rough,
77 This joy within me dallied with distress,
78 And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
79 Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:
80 For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,
81 And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.
82 But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
83 Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;
84 But oh! each
visitation
85 Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
86 My shaping spirit of Imagination.
87 For not to think of what I needs must feel,
88 But to be still and patient, all I can;
89 And haply by abstruse research to steal
90 From my own nature all the natural man--
91 This was my sole resource, my only plan:
92 Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
93 And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.
94 Hence, viper thoughts, that coil
around my mind,
95 Reality's dark dream!
96 I turn from you, and listen to the wind,
97 Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream
98 Of agony by torture lengthened out
99 That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without,
100 Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree,
101 Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
102 Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,
103 Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
104 Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,
105 Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
106 Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,
107 The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
108 Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
109 Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold!
110 What tell'st thou now about?
111 'Tis of the rushing of an host in
rout,
112 With groans, of trampled men, with smarting wounds--
113 At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!
114 But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!
115 And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
116 With groans, and tremulous shudderings--all is over--
117 It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!
118 A tale of less affright,
119 And tempered with delight,
120 As Otway's
self had framed the tender lay,--
121 'Tis of a little child
122 Upon a lonesome wild,
123 Nor far from home, but she hath lost her way:
124 And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,
125 And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.
126 'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:
127 Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!
128 Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,
129 And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,
130 May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,
131 Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!
132 With light heart may she rise,
133 Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,
134 Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;
135 To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
136 Their life the eddying of her living soul!
137 O simple spirit, guided from above,
138 Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
139 Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.
Together with the editors, the Department of English (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press, the following individuals share copyright for the work that went into this edition:
Screen Design (Electronic Edition):
Sian Meikle (University of Toronto Library)
Scanning:
Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities)
Form:
irregular (couplets and quatrains)
Composition Date:
1802
1.
Written in April 1802, first in a letter to Sara Hutchinson in a longer and more personal version, the poem as revised was first published in the Morning Post on Wordsworth's wedding day, October 4, 1802. The original version, which has its own charm and personal interests, though a less polished poem, is found most accurately transcribed in G. Whalley, Coleridge, Sara Hutchinson and the Asra Poems, 1955, 155-68.
25.
O Lady! Originally the reading was "O Sara!", then "O Edmund" (meaning Wordsworth), in the Morning Post version, and in Sibylline Leaves and subsequent editions as here.
39-58.
Probably a reply to the first four stanzas of Wordsworth's Immortality ode, which Wordsworth read to Coleridge a few days before these lines were written.
120.
As Otway's self: originally Edmund's self, i.e., Wordsworth's self, a reference to Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray." Thomas Otway, of Charles II's time, wrote plays notable for their pathos, one of which entitled The Orphan was possibly in Coleridge's mind in this revision.