The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Chapter 60 : Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, O Albion! O my mother Isle!Thy valleys, fair as Eden

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 gra.s.sy uplands' gentle swells 125 Echo to the bleat of flocks; (Those gra.s.sy hills, those glittering dells Proudly ramparted with rocks) And Ocean mid his uproar wild Speaks safety to his Island-child! 130 Hence for many a fearless age Has social Quiet lov'd thy sh.o.r.e; Nor ever proud Invader's rage Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore.

VIII

Abandon'd of Heaven![167:1] mad Avarice thy guide, 135 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 Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream! 140 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, 145 O Albion! thy predestin'd ruins rise, The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep.

IX

Away, my soul, away!

In vain, in vain the Birds of warning sing-- 150 And 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 155 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 pa.s.sions that bedim 160 G.o.d's Image, sister of the Seraphim.[168:1]

1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[160:1] First published in the _Cambridge Intelligencer_, December 31, 1796, and at the same time issued in a quarto pamphlet (the Preface is dated December 26): included in 1797, 1803, _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1829, and 1834. The Argument was first published in 1797. In 1803 the several sentences were printed as notes to the Strophes, Antistrophes, &c. For the Dedication vide Appendices.

This Ode was written on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796; and published separately on the last day of the year. _Footnote, 1797, 1808_: This Ode was composed and was first published on the last day of that year. _Footnote, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834._

[160:2] The Ode commences with an address to the great BEING, or Divine Providence, who regulates into one vast Harmony all the Events of Time, however Calamitous some of them appear to mortals. _1803_.

[161:1] The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private Joys and Sorrows, and to devote their pa.s.sions for a while to the cause of human Nature in general. _1803_.

[161:2] The Name of Liberty, which at the commencement of the French Revolution was both the occasion and the pretext of unnumbered crimes and horrors. _1803_.

[162:1] The first Epode refers to the late Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796, having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the kings combined against France. _1803_. The Empress died just as she had engaged to furnish more effectual aid to the powers combined against France. _C. I._

[162:2] A subsidiary Treaty had been just concluded; and Russia was to have furnished more effectual aid than that of pious manifestoes to the Powers combined against France. I rejoice--not over the deceased Woman (I never dared figure the Russian Sovereign to my imagination under the dear and venerable Character of WOMAN--WOMAN, that complex term for Mother, Sister, Wife!) I rejoice, as at the disenshrining of a Daemon! I rejoice, as at the extinction of the evil Principle impersonated! This very day, six years ago, the ma.s.sacre of Ismail was perpetrated. THIRTY THOUSAND HUMAN BEINGS, MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN, murdered in cold blood, for no other crime than that their garrison had defended the place with perseverance and bravery. Why should I recal the poisoning of her husband, her iniquities in Poland, or her late unmotived attack on Persia, the desolating ambition of her public life, or the libidinous excesses of her private hours! I have no wish to qualify myself for the office of Historiographer to the King of h.e.l.l--! December, 23, 1796.

_4{o}_.

[164:1] The first Antistrophe describes the Image of the Departing Year, as in a vision; and concludes with introducing the Planetary Angel of the Earth preparing to address the Supreme Being. _1803_.

[164:2] '_My soul beheld thy vision!_' i. e. Thy Image in a vision.

_4{o}_.

[165:1] Gifts used in Scripture for corruption. _C. I._

[166:1] The poem concludes with prophecying in anguish of Spirit the Downfall of this Country. _1803_.

[167:1] '_Disclaim'd of Heaven!_'--The Poet from having considered the peculiar advantages, which this country has enjoyed, pa.s.ses 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 grat.i.tude 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 pa.s.s unpunished. We have been proud and confident in our alliances and our fleets--but G.o.d 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 gra.s.shoppers 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 pa.s.sed continually?' _Nahum_, chap. iii. _4{o}_, _1797_, _1803_.

[168:1] '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._ First published as _The Recantation: an Ode_], a kind of Palinodia.' _MS. Note by S. T. C._

LINENOTES:

t.i.tle] Ode for the last day of the Year 1796, C. I.: Ode on the Departing Year 4{o}, 1797, 1803, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829.

Motto] 3-5 All editions (4{o} to 1834) read ?f????? for d?sf???????, and ??a? ?' for ??a?; and all before 1834 ?? for ' ??.

I] Strophe I C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803.

[1] Spirit] Being 1803.

[4] unchanging] unchanged 4{o}.

[5] free] freed 4{o}.

[6] and a bowed] and submitted 1803, S. L., 1817, 1828, 1829.

[7]

When lo! far onwards waving on the wind I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR.

C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803.

[11] Ere yet he pierc'd the cloud and mock'd my sight C. I. foreclos'd]

forebade 4{o}, 1797, 1803.

II] Strophe II C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803.

[15-16]

From Poverty's heart-wasting languish From Distemper's midnight anguish

C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803.

[22] Ye Sorrows, and ye Joys advance C. I. ye] and 4{o}, 1797, 1803.

[25] Forbids its fateful strings to sleep C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803.

[31] O'er the sore travail of the common Earth C. I., 4{o}.

[33-7]

Seiz'd in sore travail and portentous birth (Her eyeb.a.l.l.s flas.h.i.+ng a pernicious glare) Sick Nature struggles! Hark! her pangs increase!

Her groans are horrible! but O! most fair The promis'd Twins she bears--Equality and Peace!

C. I., 4{o}.

[36] thy] the 1797, 1803.

III] Epode C. I., 4{o}, 1797, 1803.