The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume II Part 214

The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume II Part 214

FOOTNOTES:

[1090:1] Now first published from Cottle's MSS. in the Library of Rugby School.

R[1090:2]

'Relative to a Friend remarkable for Georgoepiscopal Meanderings, and the combination of the _utile dulci_ during his walks to and from any given place, composed, together with a book and a half of an Epic Poem, during one of the _Halts_:--

'Lest after this life it should prove my sad story That my soul must needs go to the Pope's Purgatory, Many prayers have I sighed, May T. P. * * * * be my guide, For so often he'll halt, and so lead me about, That e'er we get there, thro' earth, sea, or air, The last Day will have come, and the Fires have burnt out.

'JOB JUNIOR.

'_circ.u.mbendiborum patientissimus_.'

FOOTNOTES:

[1090:2] Endorsed by T. P.: 'On my Walks. Written by Coleridge, September, 1807.' First published _Thomas Poole and His Friends_, by Mrs. Henry Sandford, 1888, ii. 196.

APPENDIX II

ALLEGORIC VISION[1091:1]

A feeling of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is wont to take possession of me alike in Spring and in Autumn. But in Spring it is the melancholy of Hope: in Autumn it is the melancholy of Resignation. As I was journeying on foot through the Appennine, I fell in with a pilgrim in whom the Spring and 5 the Autumn and the Melancholy of both seemed to have combined. In his discourse there were the freshness and the colours of April:

Qual ramicel a ramo, Tal da pensier pensiero 10 In lui germogliava.

But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I bethought me of the not unlovely decays, both of age and of the late season, in the stately elm, after the cl.u.s.ters have been plucked from its entwining vines, and the vines are as bands of dried withies 15 around its trunk and branches. Even so there was a memory on his smooth and ample forehead, which blended with the dedication of his steady eyes, that still looked--I know not, whether upward, or far onward, or rather to the line of meeting where the sky rests upon the distance. But how may I express 20 that dimness of abstraction which lay on the l.u.s.tre of the pilgrim's eyes like the flitting tarnish from the breath of a sigh on a silver mirror! and which accorded with their slow and reluctant movement, whenever he turned them to any object on the right hand or on the left? It seemed, methought, as 25 if there lay upon the brightness a shadowy presence of disappointments now unfelt, but never forgotten. It was at once the melancholy of hope and of resignation.

We had not long been fellow-travellers, ere a sudden tempest of wind and rain forced us to seek protection in the vaulted 30 door-way of a lone chapelry; and we sate face to face each on the stone bench alongside the low, weather-stained wall, and as close as possible to the ma.s.sy door.

After a pause of silence: even thus, said he, like two strangers that have fled to the same shelter from the same storm, not 35 seldom do Despair and Hope meet for the first time in the porch of Death! All extremes meet, I answered; but yours was a strange and visionary thought. The better then doth it beseem both the place and me, he replied. From a Visionary wilt thou hear a Vision? Mark that vivid flash through this 40 torrent of rain! Fire and water. Even here thy adage holds true, and its truth is the moral of my Vision. I entreated him to proceed. Sloping his face toward the arch and yet averting his eye from it, he seemed to seek and prepare his words: till listening to the wind that echoed within the hollow edifice, 45 and to the rain without,

Which stole on his thoughts with its two-fold sound, The clash hard by and the murmur all round,[1092:1]

he gradually sank away, alike from me and from his own purpose, and amid the gloom of the storm and in the duskiness of that 50 place, he sate like an emblem on a rich man's sepulchre, or like a mourner on the sodded grave of an only one--an aged mourner, who is watching the waned moon and sorroweth not. Starting at length from his brief trance of abstraction, with courtesy and an atoning smile he renewed his discourse, and commenced his 55 parable.

During one of those short furloughs from the service of the body, which the soul may sometimes obtain even in this its militant state, I found myself in a vast plain, which I immediately knew to be the Valley of Life. It possessed an 60 astonishing diversity of soils: here was a sunny spot, and there a dark one, forming just such a mixture of sunshine and shade, as we may have observed on the mountains' side in an April day, when the thin broken clouds are scattered over heaven. Almost in the very entrance of the valley stood 65 a large and gloomy pile, into which I seemed constrained to enter. Every part of the building was crowded with tawdry ornaments and fantastic deformity. On every window was portrayed, in glaring and inelegant colours, some horrible tale, or preternatural incident, so that not a ray of light could enter, 70 untinged by the medium through which it pa.s.sed. The body of the building was full of people, some of them dancing, in and out, in unintelligible figures, with strange ceremonies and antic merriment, while others seemed convulsed with horror, or pining in mad melancholy. Intermingled with these, I observed 75 a number of men, clothed in ceremonial robes, who appeared now to marshal the various groups, and to direct their movements; and now with menacing countenances, to drag some reluctant victim to a vast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed, which formed at the same time an immense cage, and the shape 80 of a human Colossus.

I stood for a while lost in wonder what these things might mean; when lo! one of the directors came up to me, and with a stern and reproachful look bade me uncover my head, for that the place into which I had entered was the temple of 85 the only true Religion, in the holier recesses of which the great G.o.ddess personally resided. Himself too he bade me reverence, as the consecrated minister of her rites. Awestruck by the name of Religion, I bowed before the priest, and humbly and earnestly intreated him to conduct me into her presence. 90 He a.s.sented. Offerings he took from me, with mystic sprinklings of water and with salt he purified, and with strange sufflations he exorcised me; and then led me through many a dark and winding alley, the dew-damps of which chilled my flesh, and the hollow echoes under my feet, mingled, methought, 95 with moanings, affrighted me. At length we entered a large hall, without window, or spiracle, or lamp. The asylum and dormitory it seemed of perennial night--only that the walls were brought to the eye by a number of self-luminous inscriptions in letters of a pale sepulchral light, which held strange neutrality 100 with the darkness, on the verge of which it kept its rayless vigil.

I could read them, methought; but though each of the words taken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I took them in sentences, they were riddles and incomprehensible. As I stood meditating on these hard sayings, my guide thus addressed 105 me--'Read and believe: these are mysteries!'--At the extremity of the vast hall the G.o.ddess was placed. Her features, blended with darkness, rose out to my view, terrible, yet vacant.

I prostrated myself before her, and then retired with my guide, soul-withered, and wondering, and dissatisfied. 110

As I re-entered the body of the temple I heard a deep buzz as of discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or steady, and whose ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like, above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed by meditative thought; and a much larger number, who were 115 enraged by the severity and insolence of the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected in one tumultuous group, and with a confused outcry of 'This is the Temple of Superst.i.tion!' after much contumely, and turmoil, and cruel maltreatment on all sides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought, joined them. 120

We speeded from the Temple with hasty steps, and had now nearly gone round half the valley, when we were addressed by a woman, tall beyond the stature of mortals, and with a something more than human in her countenance and mien, which yet could by mortals be only felt, not conveyed by words or 125 intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection, animated by ardent feelings, was displayed in them: and hope, without its uncertainty, and a something more than all these, which I understood not, but which yet seemed to blend all these into a divine unity of expression. Her garments were white and matronly, and of 130 the simplest texture. We inquired her name. 'My name,'

she replied, 'is Religion.'

The more numerous part of our company, affrighted by the very sound, and sore from recent impostures or sorceries, hurried onwards and examined no farther. A few of us, struck 135 by the manifest opposition of her form and manners to those of the living Idol, whom we had so recently abjured, agreed to follow her, though with cautious circ.u.mspection. She led us to an eminence in the midst of the valley, from the top of which we could command the whole plain, and observe the relation of 140 the different parts to each other, and of each to the whole, and of all to each. She then gave us an optic gla.s.s which a.s.sisted without contradicting our natural vision, and enabled us to see far beyond the limits of the Valley of Life; though our eye even thus a.s.sisted permitted us only to behold a light and 145 a glory, but what we could not descry, save only that it was, and that it was most glorious.

And now with the rapid transition of a dream, I had overtaken and rejoined the more numerous party, who had abruptly left us, indignant at the very name of religion. They journied 150 on, goading each other with remembrances of past oppressions, and never looking back, till in the eagerness to recede from the Temple of Superst.i.tion they had rounded the whole circle of the valley. And lo! there faced us the mouth of a vast cavern, at the base of a lofty and almost perpendicular rock, the interior 155 side of which, unknown to them and unsuspected, formed the extreme and backward wall of the Temple. An impatient crowd, we entered the vast and dusky cave, which was the only perforation of the precipice. At the mouth of the cave sate two figures; the first, by her dress and gestures, I knew to be 160 Sensuality; the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanour, and the brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared himself to be the monster Blasphemy. He uttered big words, and yet ever and anon I observed that he turned pale at his own courage. We entered. Some remained in the opening of the 165 cave, with the one or the other of its guardians. The rest, and I among them, pressed on, till we reached an ample chamber, that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of the place was unnaturally cold.

In the furthest distance of the chamber sate an old dim-eyed 170 man, poring with a microscope over the torso of a statue which had neither basis, nor feet, nor head; but on its breast was carved Nature! To this he continually applied his gla.s.s, and seemed enraptured with the various inequalities which it rendered visible on the seemingly polished surface of the 175 marble.--Yet evermore was this delight and triumph followed by expressions of hatred, and vehement railing against a Being, who yet, he a.s.sured us, had no existence. This mystery suddenly recalled to me what I had read in the holiest recess of the temple of Superst.i.tion. The old man spake in divers 180 tongues, and continued to utter other and most strange mysteries. Among the rest he talked much and vehemently concerning an infinite series of causes and effects, which he explained to be a string of blind men, the last of whom caught hold of the skirt of the one before him, he of the next, 185 and so on till they were all out of sight; and that they all walked infallibly straight, without making one false step though all were alike blind. Methought I borrowed courage from surprise, and asked him--Who then is at the head to guide them? He looked at me with ineffable contempt, not 190 unmixed with an angry suspicion, and then replied, 'No one.'

The string of blind men went on for ever without any beginning; for although one blind man could not move without stumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of sight. I burst into laughter, which instantly turned to terror--for as he started 195 forward in rage, I caught a glimpse of him from behind; and lo! I beheld a monster bi-form and Ja.n.u.s-headed, in the hinder face and shape of which I instantly recognised the dread countenance of Superst.i.tion--and in the terror I awoke.

FOOTNOTES:

[1091:1] First published in _The Courier_, Sat.u.r.day, August 31, 1811: included in 1829, 1834-5, &c. (3 vols.), and in 1844 (1 vol.). Lines 1-56 were first published as part of the 'Introduction' to _A Lay Sermon, &c._, 1817, pp. xix-x.x.xi.

The 'Allegoric Vision' dates from August, 1795. It served as a kind of preface or prologue to Coleridge's first Theological Lecture on 'The Origin of Evil. The Necessity of Revelation deduced from the Nature of Man. An Examination and Defence of the Mosaic Dispensation' (see Cottle's _Early Recollections_, 1837, i. 27). The purport of these Lectures was to uphold the golden mean of Unitarian orthodoxy as opposed to the Church on the one hand, and infidelity or materialism on the other. 'Superst.i.tion' stood for and symbolized the Church of England.

Sixteen years later this opening portion of an unpublished Lecture was rewritten and printed in _The Courier_ (Aug. 31, 1811), with the heading 'An Allegoric Vision: Superst.i.tion, Religion, Atheism'. The attack was now diverted from the Church of England to the Church of Rome. 'Men clad in black robes,' intent on gathering in their Tenths, become 'men clothed in ceremonial robes, who with menacing countenances drag some reluctant victim to a vast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed which formed at the same time an immense cage, and yet represented the form of a human Colossus. At the base of the Statue I saw engraved the words "To Dominic holy and merciful, the preventer and avenger of soul-murder".'

The vision was turned into a political _jeu d'esprit_ levelled at the aiders and abettors of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, a measure to which Coleridge was more or less opposed as long as he lived. See _Const.i.tution of Church and State_, 1830, _pa.s.sim_. A third adaptation of the 'Allegorical Vision' was affixed to the Introduction to _A Lay Sermon: Addressed to the Higher and Middle Cla.s.ses_, which was published in 1817. The first fifty-six lines, which contain a description of Italian mountain scenery, were entirely new, but the rest of the 'Vision' is an amended and softened reproduction of the preface to the Lecture of 1795. The moral he desires to point is the 'falsehood of extremes'. As Religion is the golden mean between Superst.i.tion and Atheism, so the righteous government of a righteous people is the mean between a selfish and oppressive aristocracy, and seditious and unbridled mob-rule. A probable 'Source' of the first draft of the 'Vision' is John Aikin's _Hill of Science, A Vision_, which was included in _Elegant Extracts_, 1794, ii. 801. In the present issue the text of 1834 has been collated with that of 1817 and 1829, but not (exhaustively) with the MS. (1795), or at all with the _Courier_ version of 1811.

[1092:1] From the _Ode to the Rain_, 1802, ll. 15-16:--

O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound, The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!

LINENOTES:

[21-3] --the breathed tarnish, shall I name it?--on the l.u.s.tre of the pilgrim's eyes? Yet had it not a sort of strange accordance with 1817.

[37] Compare:

like strangers shelt'ring from a storm, Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!

_Constancy to an Ideal Object_, p. 456.

[39] VISIONARY 1817, 1829.

[40] VISION 1817, 1829.

[49] sank] sunk 1817.

[51-2] _or like_ an aged mourner on the sodden grave of an only one--a mourner, _who_ 1817.

[57-9] It was towards morning when the Brain begins to rea.s.sume its waking state, and our dreams approach to the regular trains of Reality, that I found MS. 1795.

[60] VALLEY OF LIFE 1817, 1829.

[61] and here was 1817, 1829.