The voice had ceas'd, the Vision fled;
Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread.
And ever, when the dream of night
Renews the phantom to my sight,
Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;
My ears throb hot; my eye-balls start;
My brain with horrid tumult swims;
Wild is the tempest of my heart;
And my thick and struggling breath
Imitates the toil of death!
No stranger agony confounds

The Soldier on the war-field spread,
When all foredone with toil and wounds,

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!

(The strife is o'er, the day-light fled,

And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

See! the starting wretch's head

Lies pillow'd on a brother's corse!)

120

VII

Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,
O Albion! O my mother Isle!
Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers
Glitter green with sunny showers;
Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells.
Echo to the bleat of flocks;

(Those grassy hills, those glittering dells
Proudly ramparted with rocks)
And Ocean mid his uproar wild

125

The poem concludes with prophecying in anguish of Spirit the Downfall of this Country. 1803.

of La Vendée-from Africa the unnumbered victims of a detestable Slave-Trade. In Asia the desolated plains of Indostan, and the millions whom a rice-contracting Governor caused to perish. In America the recent enormities of the Scalp-merchants. The four quarters of the globe groan beneath the intolerable iniquity of the nation." See 'Addresses to the People', p. 46. C. I.

VI] Epode II. 4o, 1797, 1803.

1803.

103 Vision] Phantoms 4o, 1797, 1803. 106 phantom] vision 4°, 1797, 107 sweat-drops] sweat-damps 4o, 1797, 1803. stranger] uglier 4o. 119 starting] startful 4o, 1797, 1803. doom'd to fall, enslav'd and vile 4o, 1797, 1803.

113

121 0

Has social Quiet lov'd thy shore;

130

Nor ever proud Invader's rage

Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore.

VIII

Abandon'd of Heaven!' mad Avarice thy guide,
At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride-
Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood,
And join'd the wild yelling of Famine and Blood!
The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering

135

1 'Disclaim'd of Heaven!'-The Poet from having considered the peculiar advantages, which this country has enjoyed, passes in rapid transition to the uses, which we have made of these advantages. We have been preserved by our insular situation, from suffering the actual horrors of War ourselves, and we have shewn our gratitude to Providence for this immunity by our eagerness to spread those horrors over nations less happily situated. In the midst of plenty and safety we have raised or joined the yell for famine and blood. Of the one hundred and seven last years, fifty have been years of War. Such wickedness cannot pass unpunished. We have been proud and confident in our alliances and our fleets-but God has prepared the canker-worm, and will smite the gourds of our pride. Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the Sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength and it was infinite: Put and Lubim were her helpers. Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. Thou also shalt be drunken: all thy strongholds shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs; if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven. Thy crowned are as the locusts; and thy captains as the great grasshoppers which camp in the hedges in the cool-day; but when the Sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all, that hear the report of thee, shall clap hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?' Nahum, chap. iii. 4o, 1797, 1803.

:

133 proud Invader's] sworded Foeman's 4o, 1797: sworded Warrior's 1803. 135-9 Disclaim'd of Heaven! mad Avarice at thy side 4o, 1797.

At coward distance, yet with kindling pride-
Safe 'mid thy herds and cornfields thou hast stood,
And join'd the yell of Famine and of Blood.

All nations curse thee: and with eager wond'ring 4o, 1797. 135 O abandon'd 1803.

137-8 Mid thy Corn-fields and Herds thou in plenty hast stood And join❜d the loud yellings of Famine and Blood. 1803. 139 They] and 1797, 1803, S. L. 1817.

Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream!
Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream
Of central fires through nether seas up-thundering
Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies
By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,
If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes,

O Albion! thy predestin'd ruins rise,

The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap,
Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charméd sleep.

IX

Away, my soul, away!

In vain, in vain the Birds of warning singAnd hark! I hear the famish'd brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! Away, my soul, away!

I unpartaking of the evil thing,

With daily prayer and daily toil
Soliciting for food my scanty soil,

Have wail'd my country with a loud Lament.

Now I recentre my immortal mind

In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content; Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim God's Image, sister of the Seraphim.'

1796.

140

145

150

155

160

'Let it not be forgotten during the perusal of this Ode that it was written many years before the abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Legislature, likewise before the invasion of Switzerland by the French Republic, which occasioned the Ode that follows [France: an Ode. published as The Recantation: an Ode], a kind of Palinodia.' MS. Note by S. T. C.

142 fires] flames 4o.

144

First

Stretch'd on the marge of some fire-flashing fount In the black Chamber of a sulphur'd mount. 4o. 144 By livid fount, or roar of blazing stream 1797. 146 Visions of thy predestin'd ruins rise 1803. 151 famish'd] famin'd 4o. Soliciting my scant and blameless soil 4o.

156

159-60 In the long sabbath of high self-content.
Cleans'd from the fleshly passions that bedim 4o.
In the deep sabbath of blest self-content
Cleans'd from the fears and anguish that
In the blest sabbath of high self-content
Cleans'd from bedimming Fear, and Anguish weak and blind.

161 om. 1803.

dim 1797.

1803.

THE RAVEN 1

A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS
LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS

UNDERNEATH an old oak tree

There was of swine a huge company,
That grunted as they crunched the mast:
For that was ripe, and fell full fast.

Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high:
One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.
Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:
He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,

Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.

5

10

1 First published in the Morning Post, March 10, 1793 (with an introductory letter, vide infra): included (with the letter, and except line 15 the same text) in the Annual Anthology, 1800, in Sibylline Leaves, 1817 (pp. vi-viii), 1828, 1829, and 1834.

[To the editor of the Morning Post.]

'Sir, I am not absolutely certain that the following Poem was written by EDMUND SPENSER, and found by an Angler buried in a fishing-box :

'Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,

Mid the green alders, by the Mulla's shore.'

But a learned Antiquarian of my acquaintance has given it as his opinion that it resembles SPENSER'S minor Poems as nearly as Vortigern and Rowena the Tragedies of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. -The Poem must be read in recitative, in the same manner as the Acgloga Secunda of the Shepherd's Calendar.

CUDDY.'

6

M. P., An. Anth.

The Karen-Title] A Christinas Tale,' &c., was first prefixed in S. L. 1817. The letter introduced the poem in the Morning Post. In the Annual Anthology the 'Letter' is headed 'The Raven'. Lamb in a letter to Coleridge, dated Feb. 5, 1797, alludes to this poem as 'Your Dream'. 1-8

Under the arms of a goodly oak-tree
There was of Swine a large company.
They were making a rude repast,
Grunting as they crunch'd the mast.

Then they trotted away: for the wind blew high-
One acorn they left, ne more mote you spy.

Next came a Raven, who lik'd not such folly:
He belong'd, I believe, to the witch MELANCHOLY !
M. P., An. Anth., and (with variants given below) MS. S. T. C.

5

I Beneath a goodly old oak tree MS. S. T. C. an old] a huge S. L. 1817,

1828, 1829.

Soon MS. S. T. C. his feathers were

6 ne more] and no more MS. S. T. C.

8 belonged it was said S. L. 1817. wet M. P., An. Anth., MS. S. T. C.

7 Next] But 10 in the rain;

He picked up the acorn and buried it straight
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven go?
He went high and low,

Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.
Many Autumns, many Springs
Travelled he with wandering wings:
Many Summers, many Winters-

I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a She,
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were happy enow.
But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.
He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,
At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak.
His young ones were killed; for they could not depart,
And their mother did die of a broken heart.

15

20

25

30

The boughs from the trunk the Woodman did sever;
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.
The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand.
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast:
Round and round flew the raven, and cawed to the blast.

35

Seventeen or eighteen years ago an artist of some celebrity was so pleased with this doggerel that he amused himself with the thought of making a Child's Picture Book of it; but he could not hit on a picture for these four lines. I suggested a Round-about with four seats, and the four seasons, as Children, with Time for the shew-man. Footnote, Sibylline Leaves, 1817.

17 with] on MS. S. T. C.
MS. S. T. C.

20

15 O'er hill, o'er dale M. P. came back] return'd M. P., An. Anth., 21 to a tall] a large M. P., An. Anth., MS. S. T. C. 22 topmost] uppermost MS. S. T. C. 23 happy] jolly M. P., An. Anth. 26 and he nothing spoke M. P., An. Anth., MS. S. T. C. 28 At length] Wel-a-day MS. S. T. C.: At last M. P., An. Anth. 30 And his wife she did die M. P., An. Anth., MS. S. T. C. 31 The branches from off it M.P., An. Anth.: The branches from off this the MS. S. T. C. 32 And floated MS. S. T. C. 33 They saw'd it to planks, and its rind M. P., An. Anth. They saw'd it to planks and its bark MS. S. T. C. 34 they built up a ship M. P., An. Anth. 36 Such... ship] A tempest arose which no ship M. P., An. Anth., MS. S. T. C. 38 The auld raven flew round and round M. P., An. Anth. The old raven flew round and round MS. S. T. C., S. L. 1817, 1825, 1829.