The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Chapter 46 : Thee to defend the Moloch Priest prefers 185 The prayer of hate, and bellows to the her

Thee to defend the Moloch Priest prefers 185 The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd, That Deity, Accomplice Deity In the fierce jealousy of wakened wrath Will go forth with our armies and our fleets To scatter the red ruin on their foes! 190 O blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds With blessedness!

Lord of unsleeping Love,[116:2]

From everlasting Thou! We shall not die.

These, even these, in mercy didst thou form, Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong 195 Making Truth lovely, and her future might Magnetic o'er the fixed untrembling heart.

In the primeval age a dateless while The vacant Shepherd wander'd with his flock, Pitching his tent where'er the green gra.s.s waved. 200 But soon Imagination conjured up An host of new desires: with busy aim, Each for himself, Earth's eager children toiled.

So Property began, twy-streaming fount, Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall. 205 Hence the soft couch, and many-coloured robe, The timbrel, and arched dome and costly feast, With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants Unsensualised the mind, which in the means 210 Learnt to forget the grossness of the end, Best pleasured with its own activity.

And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm, The daggered Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests--all the sore ills[117:1] 215 That vex and desolate our mortal life.

Wide-wasting ills! yet each the immediate source Of mightier good. Their keen necessities To ceaseless action goading human thought Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord; 220 And the pale-featured Sage's trembling hand Strong as an host of armed Deities, Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.

From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War Sprang heavenly Science; and from Science Freedom. 225 O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from G.o.d, Brook not Wealth's rivalry! and they, who long Enamoured with the charms of order, hate 230 The unseemly disproportion: and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the Victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage[118:1]

Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rus.h.i.+ng cloud 235 And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er Measured firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day, When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men 240 Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered tribes That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind-- These, hush'd awhile with patient eye serene, Shall watch the mad careering of the storm; Then o'er the wild and wavy chaos rush 245 And tame the outrageous ma.s.s, with plastic might Moulding Confusion to such perfect forms, As erst were wont,--bright visions of the day!-- To float before them, when, the summer noon, Beneath some arched romantic rock reclined 250 They felt the sea-breeze lift their youthful locks; Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve, Wandering with desultory feet inhaled The wafted perfumes, and the flocks and woods And many-tinted streams and setting sun 255 With all his gorgeous company of clouds Ecstatic gazed! then homeward as they strayed Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused Why there was misery in a world so fair.

Ah! far removed from all that glads the sense, 260 From all that softens or enn.o.bles Man, The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads They gape at pageant Power, nor recognise Their cots' trans.m.u.ted plunder! From the tree Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen 265 Rudely disbranched! Blessed Society!

Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorched waste, Where oft majestic through the tainted noon The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp[119:1]

Who falls not prostrate dies! And where by night, 270 Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs The lion couches: or hyaena dips Deep in the lucid stream his b.l.o.o.d.y jaws; Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk, Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth[119:2] yells, 275 His bones loud-cras.h.i.+ng!

O ye numberless, Whom foul Oppression's ruffian gluttony Drives from Life's plenteous feast! O thou poor Wretch Who nursed in darkness and made wild by want, Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand 280 Dost lift to deeds of blood! O pale-eyed form, The victim of seduction, doomed to know Polluted nights and days of blasphemy; Who in loathed orgies with lewd wa.s.sailers Must gaily laugh, while thy remembered Home 285 Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart!

O aged Women! ye who weekly catch The morsel tossed by law-forced charity, And die so slowly, that none call it murder!

O loathly suppliants! ye, that unreceived 290 Totter heart-broken from the closing gates Of the full Lazar-house; or, gazing, stand, Sick with despair! O ye to Glory's field Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death, Bleed with new wounds beneath the vulture's beak! 295 O thou poor widow, who in dreams dost view Thy husband's mangled corse, and from short doze Start'st with a shriek; or in thy half-thatched cot Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold Cow'rst o'er thy screaming baby! Rest awhile 300 Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise, More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full.

Yet is the day of Retribution nigh: The Lamb of G.o.d hath opened the fifth seal:[120:1]

And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire 305 The innumerable mult.i.tude of wrongs By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile, Children of Wretchedness! The hour is nigh And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men, The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World, 310 With all that fixed on high like stars of Heaven Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth, Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm.

Even now the storm begins:[121:1] each gentle name, 315 Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy Tremble far-off--for lo! the Giant Frenzy Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge, 320 Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits Nursing the impatient earthquake.

O return!

Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorred Form[121:2]

Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, 325 Whose names were many and all blasphemous, Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry?

The mighty army of foul Spirits shrieked Disherited of earth! For she hath fallen On whose black front was written Mystery; 330 She that reeled heavily, whose wine was blood; She that worked wh.o.r.edom with the Daemon Power, And from the dark embrace all evil things Brought forth and nurtured: mitred Atheism!

And patient Folly who on bended knee 335 Gives back the steel that stabbed him; and pale Fear Haunted by ghastlier shapings than surround Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight!

Return pure Faith! return meek Piety!

The kingdoms of the world are your's: each heart 340 Self-governed, the vast family of Love Raised from the common earth by common toil Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights As float to earth, permitted visitants!

When in some hour of solemn jubilee 345 The ma.s.sy gates of Paradise are thrown Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies, And odours s.n.a.t.c.hed from beds of Amaranth, And they, that from the crystal river of life 350 Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales!

The favoured good man in his lonely walk Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks Strange bliss which he shall recognise in heaven.

And such delights, such strange beat.i.tudes 355 Seize on my young antic.i.p.ating heart When that blest future rushes on my view!

For in his own and in his Father's might The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years[122:1]

Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts! 360 Old Ocean claps his hands! The mighty Dead Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time With conscious zeal had urged Love's wondrous plan, Coadjutors of G.o.d. To Milton's trump The high groves of the renovated Earth 365 Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hushed, Adoring Newton his serener eye Raises to heaven: and he of mortal kind Wisest, he[123:1] first who marked the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain. 370 Lo! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage, Him, full of years, from his loved native land Statesmen blood-stained and priests idolatrous By dark lies maddening the blind mult.i.tude Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying he retired, 375 And mused expectant on these promised years.

O Years! the blest pre-eminence of Saints!

Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright, The wings that veil the adoring Seraphs' eyes, What time they bend before the Jasper Throne[123:2] 380 Reflect no lovelier hues! Yet ye depart, And all beyond is darkness! Heights most strange, Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing.

For who of woman born may paint the hour, When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane 385 Making noon ghastly! Who of woman born May image in the workings of his thought, How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretched[124:1]

Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans, In feverous slumbers--destined then to wake, 390 When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name And Angels shout, Destruction! How his arm The last great Spirit lifting high in air Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One, Time is no more!

Believe thou, O my soul,[124:2] 395 Life is a vision shadowy of Truth; And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire, And lo! the Throne of the redeeming G.o.d Forth flas.h.i.+ng unimaginable day 400 Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest h.e.l.l.

Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er With untired gaze the immeasurable fount Ebullient with creative Deity!

And ye of plastic power, that interfused 405 Roll through the grosser and material ma.s.s In organizing surge! Holies of G.o.d!

(And what if Monads of the infinite mind?) I haply journeying my immortal course Shall sometime join your mystic choir! Till then 410 I discipline my young and novice thought In ministeries of heart-stirring song, And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love, 415 Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul As the great Sun, when he his influence Sheds on the frost-bound waters--The glad stream Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows.

1794-1796.

FOOTNOTES:

[108:1] First published in 1796: included in 1797, 1803, 1828, 1829, and 1834. Lines 260-357 were published in _The Watchman_, No. II, March 9, 1796, ent.i.tled 'The Present State of Society'. In the editions of 1796, 1797, and 1803 the following lines, an adaptation of a pa.s.sage in the First Book of Akenside's _Pleasures of the Imagination_, were prefixed as a motto:--

What tho' first, In years unseason'd, I attun'd the lay To idle Pa.s.sion and unreal Woe?

Yet serious Truth her empire o'er my song Hath now a.s.serted; Falsehood's evil brood, Vice and deceitful Pleasure, she at once Excluded, and my Fancy's careless toil Drew to the better cause!

An 'Argument' followed on a separate page:--

Introduction. Person of Christ. His prayer on the Cross. The process of his Doctrines on the mind of the Individual. Character of the Elect.

Superst.i.tion. Digression to the present War. Origin and Uses of Government and Property. The present State of Society. The French Revolution. Millenium. Universal Redemption. Conclusion.

[110:1] ?? ???t?? d?????as?? e?? p????? Te?? ?d??t?ta?. DAMAS. DE MYST. AEGYPT.

_Footnote_ to line 34, _1797_, _1803_, _1828_, _1829_. [This note, which should be attached to l. 33, is a comment on the original line 'Split and mishap'd' &c., of 1796. The quotation as translated reads thus:--'Men have split up the Intelligible One into the peculiar attributes of G.o.ds many'.]

[110:2] See this _demonstrated_ by Hartley, vol. 1, p. 114, and vol. 2, p. 329. See it likewise proved, and freed from the charge of Mysticism, by Pistorius in his Notes and Additions to part second of Hartley on Man, Addition the 18th, the 653rd page of the third volume of Hartley, Octavo Edition. _Note_ to line 44, _1797_. [David Hartley's _Observations on Man_ were published in 1749. His son republished them in 1791, with Notes, &c., from the German of H. A. Pistorius, Pastor and Provost of the Synod at Poseritz in the Island of Rugen.]

[112:1] And I heard a great voice out of the Temple saying to the seven Angels, pour out the vials of the wrath of G.o.d upon the earth.

Revelation, xvi. 1. _Note_ to line 91, _Notes_, 1796, p. 90.

[112:2] Our evil Pa.s.sions, under the influence of Religion, become innocent, and may be made to animate our virtue--in the same manner as the thick mist melted by the Sun, increases the light which it had before excluded. In the preceding paragraph, agreeably to this truth, we had allegorically narrated the transfiguration of Fear into holy Awe.

_Footnote_ to line 91, _1797_: to line 101, _1803_.

[114:1] If to make aught but the Supreme Reality the object of final pursuit, be Superst.i.tion; if the attributing of sublime properties to things or persons, which those things or persons neither do or can possess, be Superst.i.tion; then Avarice and Ambition are Superst.i.tions: and he who wishes to estimate the evils of Superst.i.tion, should transport himself, not to the temple of the Mexican Deities, but to the plains of Flanders, or the coast of Africa.--Such is the sentiment convey'd in this and the subsequent lines. _Footnote_ to line 135, _1797_: to line 143, _1803_.

[115:1] January 21st, 1794, in the debate on the Address to his Majesty, on the speech from the Throne, the Earl of Guildford (_sic_) moved an Amendment to the following effect:--'That the House hoped his Majesty would seize the earliest opportunity to conclude a peace with France,'

&c. This motion was opposed by the Duke of Portland, who 'considered the war to be merely grounded on one principle--the preservation of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION'. May 30th, 1794, the Duke of Bedford moved a number of Resolutions, with a view to the Establishment of a Peace with France.

He was opposed (among others) by Lord Abingdon in these remarkable words: 'The best road to Peace, my Lords, is WAR! and WAR carried on in the same manner in which we are taught to wors.h.i.+p our CREATOR, namely, with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our hearts, and with all our strength.' [_Footnote_ to line 159, _1797_, _1803_, _1828_, _1829_, and _1834_.]

[115:2] That Despot who received the wages of an hireling that he might act the part of a swindler, and who skulked from his impotent attacks on the liberties of France to perpetrate more successful iniquity in the plains of _Poland_. _Note_ to line 193. _Notes_, 1796, p. 170.

[116:1] The Father of the present Prince of Hesse Ca.s.sell supported himself and his strumpets at Paris by the vast sums which he received from the British Government during the American War for the flesh of his subjects. _Notes_, 1796, p. 176.

[116:2] Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, mine Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord! thou hast ordained them for judgment, &c. Habakkuk i.

12. _Note_ to line 212. _Notes_, 1796, p. 171. _Footnote, 1828, 1829, 1834._

Art thou not, &c. In this paragraph the Author recalls himself from his indignation against the instruments of Evil, to contemplate the _uses_ of these Evils in the great process of divine Benevolence. In the first age, Men were innocent from ignorance of Vice; they fell, that by the knowledge of consequences they might attain intellectual security, i. e.

Virtue, which is a wise and strong-nerv'd Innocence. _Footnote_ to line 196, _1797_: to line 204, _1803_.

[117:1] I deem that the teaching of the gospel for hire is wrong; because it gives the teacher an improper bias in favour of particular opinions on a subject where it is of the last importance that the mind should be perfectly unbia.s.sed. Such is my private opinion; but I mean not to censure all hired teachers, many among whom I know, and venerate as the best and wisest of men--G.o.d forbid that I should think of these, when I use the word PRIEST, a name, after which any other term of abhorrence would appear an anti-climax. By a Priest I mean a man who holding the scourge of power in his right hand and a bible (translated by authority) in his left, doth necessarily cause the bible and the scourge to be a.s.sociated ideas, and so produces that temper of mind which leads to Infidelity--Infidelity which judging of Revelation by the doctrines and practices of established Churches honors G.o.d by rejecting Christ. See 'Address to the People', p. 57, sold by Parsons, Paternoster Row. _Note_ to line 235. _Notes_, 1796, pp. 171, 172.

[118:1] Dr. Franklin. _Note_ to line 253. _Notes_, 1796, p. 172.

[119:1] At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated with great pleasure the rugged top of Chiggre, to which we were fast approaching, and where we were to solace ourselves with plenty of good water, IDRIS cried out with a loud voice, 'Fall upon your faces, for here is the Simoom'. I saw from the S.E. an haze come on, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground.--We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till IDRIS told us it was blown over.

The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was indeed pa.s.sed; but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten suffocation. Bruce's _Travels_, vol. 4, p. 557. _Note_ to line 288. _Notes_, 1796, pp. 172, 173.

[119:2] Behemoth, in Hebrew, signifies wild beasts in general. Some believe it is the Elephant, some the Hippopotamus; some affirm it is the Wild Bull. Poetically, it designates any large Quadruped. [Footnote to l. 279, _1797_: to l. 286, _1803_. Reprinted in _1828_, _1829_, and _1834_. The note to l. 294 in _1796_, p. 173 ran thus: Used poetically for a very large quadruped, but in general it designates the elephant.]

[120:1] See the sixth chapter of the Revelation of St. John the Divine.--And I looked and beheld a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and h.e.l.l followed with him. And power was given unto them over the FOURTH part of the Earth to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with pestilence, and with the beasts of the Earth.--And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of G.o.d, and for the testimony which they held; and white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also, and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, the stars of Heaven fell unto the Earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind] And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, &c.