The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Chapter 1 : The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Vol I.

The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Vol I.

PREFACE

The aim and purport of this edition of the _Poetical Works_ of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is to provide the general reader with an authoritative list of the poems and dramas. .h.i.therto published, and at the same time to furnish the student with an exhaustive summary of various readings derived from published and unpublished sources, viz. (1) the successive editions issued by the author, (2) holograph MSS., or (3) contemporary transcriptions. Occasion has been taken to include in the Text and Appendices a considerable number of poems, fragments, metrical experiments and first drafts of poems now published for the first time from MSS. in the British Museum, from Coleridge's Notebooks, and from MSS. in the possession of private collectors.

The text of the poems and dramas follows that of the last edition of the _Poetical Works_ published in the author's lifetime--the three-volume edition issued by Pickering in the spring and summer of 1834.

I have adopted the text of 1834 in preference to that of 1829, which was selected by James d.y.k.es Campbell for his monumental edition of 1893. I should have deferred to his authority but for the existence of conclusive proof that, here and there, Coleridge altered and emended the text of 1829, with a view to the forthcoming edition of 1834. In the Preface to the 'new edition' of 1852, the editors maintain that the three-volume edition of 1828 (a mistake for 1829) was the last upon which Coleridge was 'able to bestow personal care and attention', while that of 1834 was 'arranged mainly if not entirely at the discretion of his latest editor, H. N. Coleridge'. This, no doubt, was perfectly true with regard to the choice and arrangement of the poems, and the labour of seeing the three volumes through the press; but the fact remains that the text of 1829 differs from that of 1834, and that Coleridge himself, and not his 'latest editor', was responsible for that difference.

I have in my possession the proof of the first page of the 'Destiny of Nations' as it appeared in 1828 and 1829. Line 5 ran thus: 'The Will, the Word, the Breath, the Living G.o.d.' This line is erased and line 5 of 1834 subst.i.tuted: 'To the Will Absolute, the One, the Good' and line 6, 'The I AM, the Word, the Life, the Living G.o.d,' is added, and, in 1834, appeared for the first time. Moreover, in the 'Songs of the Pixies', lines 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, as printed in 1834, differ from the readings of 1829 and all previous editions. Again, in 'Christabel' lines 6, 7 as printed in 1834 differ from the versions of 1828, 1829, and revert to the original reading of the MSS. and the First Edition. It is inconceivable that in Coleridge's lifetime and while his pen was still busy, his nephew should have meddled with, or remodelled, the master's handiwork.

The poems have been printed, as far as possible, in chronological order, but when no MS. is extant, or when the MS. authority is a first draft embodied in a notebook, the exact date can only be arrived at by a balance of probabilities. The present edition includes all poems and fragments published for the first time in 1893. Many of these were excerpts from the Notebooks, collected, transcribed, and dated by myself. Some of the fragments (_vide post_, p. 996, n. 1) I have since discovered are not original compositions, but were selected pa.s.sages from elder poets--amongst them Cartwright's lines, ent.i.tled 'The Second Birth', which are printed on p. 362 of the text; but for their insertion in the edition of 1893, for a few misreadings of the MSS., and for their approximate date, I was mainly responsible.

In preparing the textual and bibliographical notes which are now printed as footnotes to the poems I was constantly indebted for information and suggestions to the Notes to the Poems (pp. 561-654) in the edition of 1893. I have taken nothing for granted, but I have followed, for the most part, where d.y.k.es Campbell led, and if I differ from his conclusions or have been able to supply fresh information, it is because fresh information based on fresh material was at my disposal.

No apology is needed for publis.h.i.+ng a collation of the text of Coleridge's Poems with that of earlier editions or with the MSS. of first drafts and alternative versions. The first to attempt anything of the kind was Richard Herne Shepherd, the learned and accurate editor of the _Poetical Works_ in four volumes, issued by Basil Montagu Pickering in 1877. Important variants are recorded by Mr. Campbell in his Notes to the edition of 1893; and in a posthumous volume, edited by Mr. Hale White in 1899 (_Coleridge's Poems_, &c.), the corrected parts of 'Religious Musings', the MSS. of 'Lewti', the 'Introduction to the Dark Ladie', and other poems are reproduced in facsimile. Few poets have altered the text of their poems so often, and so often for the better, as Coleridge. He has been blamed for 'writing so little', for deserting poetry for metaphysics and theology; he has been upbraided for winning only to lose the 'prize of his high calling'. Sir Walter Scott, one of his kindlier censors, rebukes him for 'the caprice and indolence with which he has thrown from him, as if in mere wantonness, those unfinished sc.r.a.ps of poetry, which like the Torso of antiquity defy the skill of his poetical brethren to complete them'. But whatever may be said for or against Coleridge as an 'inventor of harmonies', neither the fineness of his self-criticism nor the laborious diligence which he expended on perfecting his inventions can be gainsaid. His erasures and emendations are not only a lesson in the art of poetry, not only a record of poetical growth and development, but they discover and reveal the hidden springs, the thoughts and pa.s.sions of the artificer.

But if this be true of a stanza, a line, a word here or there, inserted as an afterthought, is there use or sense in printing a number of trifling or, apparently, accidental variants? Might not a choice have been made, and the jots and t.i.ttles ignored or suppressed?

My plea is that it is difficult if not impossible to draw a line above which a variant is important and below which it is negligible; that, to use a word of the poet's own coining, his emendations are rarely if ever 'lightheartednesses'; and that if a collation of the printed text with MSS. is worth studying at all the one must be as decipherable as the other. Facsimiles are rare and costly productions, and an exhaustive table of variants is the nearest approach to a subst.i.tute. Many, I know, are the shortcomings, too many, I fear, are the errors in the footnotes to this volume, but now, for the first time, the MSS. of Coleridge's poems which are known to be extant are in a manner reproduced and made available for study and research.

Six poems of some length are now printed and included in the text of the poems for the first time.

The first, 'Easter Holidays' (p. 1), is unquestionably a 'School-boy Poem', and was written some months before the author had completed his fifteenth year. It tends to throw doubt on the alleged date of 'Time, Real and Imaginary'.

The second,'An Inscription for a Seat,' &c. (p. 349), was first published in the _Morning Post_, on October 21, 1800, Coleridge's twenty-eighth birthday. It remains an open question whether it was written by Coleridge or by Wordsworth. Both were contributors to the _Morning Post_. Both wrote 'Inscriptions'. Both had a hand in making the 'seat'. Neither claimed or republished the poem. It favours or, rather, parodies the style and sentiments now of one and now of the other.

The third, 'The Rash Conjurer' (p. 399), must have been read by H. N.

Coleridge, who included the last seven lines, the 'Epilogue', in the first volume of _Literary Remains_, published in 1836. I presume that, even as a fantasia, the subject was regarded as too extravagant, and, it may be, too coa.r.s.ely worded for publication. It was no doubt in the first instance a 'metrical experiment', but it is to be interpreted allegorically. The 'Rash Conjurer', the _ame d.a.m.nee_, is the adept in the black magic of metaphysics. But for that he might have been like his brothers, a 'Devons.h.i.+re Christian'.

The fourth, 'The Madman and the Lethargist' (p. 414), is an expansion of an epigram in the Greek Anthology. It is possible that it was written in Germany in 1799, and is contemporary with the epigrams published in the _Morning Post_ in 1802, for the Greek original is quoted by Lessing in a critical excursus on the nature of an epigram.

The fifth, 'Faith, Hope, and Charity' (p. 427), was translated from the Italian of Guarini at Calne, in 1815.

Of the sixth, 'The Delinquent Travellers' (p. 443), I know nothing save that the MS., a first copy, is in Coleridge's handwriting. It was probably written for and may have been published in a newspaper or periodical. It was certainly written at Highgate.

Of the epigrams and _jeux d'esprit_ eight are now published for the first time, and of the fragments from various sources twenty-seven have been added to those published in 1893.

Of the first drafts and alternative versions of well-known poems thirteen are now printed for the first time. Two versions of 'The Eolian Harp', preserved in the Library of Rugby School, and the dramatic fragment ent.i.tled 'The Triumph of Loyalty', are of especial interest and importance.

An exact reproduction of the text of the 'Ancyent Marinere' as printed in an early copy of the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798 which belonged to S.

T. Coleridge, and a collation of the text of the 'Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie', as published in the _Morning Post_, Dec. 21, 1799, with two MSS. preserved in the British Museum, are included in Appendix No. I.

The text of the 'Allegoric Vision' has been collated with the original MS. and with the texts of 1817 and 1829.

A section has been devoted to 'Metrical Experiments'; eleven out of thirteen are now published for the first time. A few critical notes by Professor Saintsbury are, with his kind permission, appended to the text.

Numerous poems and fragments of poems first saw the light in 1893; and now again, in 1912, a second batch of newly-discovered, forgotten, or purposely omitted MSS. has been collected for publication. It may reasonably be asked if the tale is told, or if any MSS. have been retained for publication at a future date. I cannot answer for fresh discoveries of poems already published in newspapers and periodicals, or of MSS. in private collections, but I can vouch for a final issue of all poems and fragments of poems included in the collection of Notebooks and una.s.sorted MSS. which belonged to Coleridge at his death and were bequeathed by him to his literary executor, Joseph Henry Green. Nothing remains which if published in days to come could leave the present issue incomplete.

A bibliography of the successive editions of poems and dramas published by Coleridge himself and of the princ.i.p.al collected and selected editions which have been published since 1834 follows the Appendices to this volume. The actual record is long and intricate, but the history of the gradual accretions may be summed up in a few sentences. 'The Fall of Robespierre' was published in 1795. A first edition, ent.i.tled 'Poems on Various Subjects', was published in 1796. Second and third editions, with additions and subtractions, followed in 1797 and 1803. Two poems, 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere' and 'The Nightingale, a Conversation Poem', and two extracts from an unpublished drama ('Osorio') were included in the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798. A quarto pamphlet containing three poems, 'Fears in Solitude,' 'France: An Ode,' 'Frost at Midnight,'

was issued in the same year. 'Love' was first published in the second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800. 'The Three Graves,' 'A Hymn before Sunrise, &c.,' and 'Idoloclastes Satyrane', were included in the _Friend_ (Sept.-Nov., 1809). 'Christabel,' 'Kubla Khan,' and 'The Pains of Sleep' were published by themselves in 1816. _Sibylline Leaves_, which appeared in 1817 and was described as 'A Collection of Poems', included the contents of the editions of 1797 and 1803, the poems published in the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798, 1800, and the quarto pamphlet of 1798, but excluded the contents of the first edition (except the 'Eolian Harp'), 'Christabel', 'Kubla Khan', and 'The Pains of Sleep'. The first collected edition of the _Poetical Works_ (which included a selection of the poems published in the three first editions, a reissue of _Sibylline Leaves_, the 'Wanderings of Cain', a few poems recently contributed to periodicals, and the following dramas--the translation of Schiller's 'Piccolomini', published in 1800, 'Remorse'--a revised version of 'Osorio'--published in 1813, and 'Zapolya', published in 1817) was issued in three volumes in 1828. A second collected edition in three volumes, a reissue of 1828, with an amended text and the addition of 'The Improvisatore' and 'The Garden of Boccaccio', followed in 1829.

Finally, in 1834, there was a reissue in three volumes of the contents of 1829 with numerous additional poems then published or collected for the first time. The first volume contained twenty-six juvenilia printed from letters and MS. copybooks which had been preserved by the poet's family, and the second volume some forty 'Miscellaneous Poems', extracted from the Notebooks or reprinted from newspapers. The most important additions were 'Alice du Clos', then first published from MS., 'The Knight's Tomb' and the 'Epitaph'. 'Love, Hope, and Patience in Education', which had appeared in the _Keepsake_ of 1830, was printed on the last page of the third volume.

After Coleridge's death the first attempt to gather up the fragments of his poetry was made by his 'latest editor' H. N. Coleridge in 1836. The first volume of _Literary Remains_ contains the first reprint of 'The Fall of Robespierre', some thirty-six poems collected from the _Watchman_, the _Morning Post_, &c., and a selection of fragments then first printed from a MS. Notebook, now known as 'the Gutch Memorandum Book'.

H. N. Coleridge died in 1843, and in 1844 his widow prepared a one-volume edition of the Poems, which was published by Pickering.

Eleven juvenilia which had first appeared in 1834 were omitted and the poems first collected in _Literary Remains_ were for the first time included in the text. In 1850 Mrs. H. N. Coleridge included in the third volume of the _Essays on His Own Times_ six poems and numerous epigrams and _jeux d'esprit_ which had appeared in the _Morning Post_ and _Courier_. This was the first reprint of the Epigrams as a whole. A 'new edition' of the Poems which she had prepared in the last year of her life was published immediately after her death (May, 1852) by Edward Moxon. It was based on the one-volume edition of 1844, with unimportant omissions and additions; only one poem, 'The Hymn', was published for the first time from MS.

In the same year (1852) the Dramatic Works (not including 'The Fall of Robespierre'), edited by Derwent Coleridge, were published in a separate volume.

In 1863 and 1870 the 'new edition' of 1852 was reissued by Derwent Coleridge with an appendix containing thirteen poems collected for the first time in 1863. The reissue of 1870 contained a reprint of the first edition of the 'Ancient Mariner'.

The first edition of the _Poetical Works_, based on all previous editions, and including the contents of _Literary Remains_ (vol. i) and of _Essays on His Own Times_ (vol. iii), was issued by Basil Montagu Pickering in four volumes in 1877. Many poems (including 'Remorse') were collated for the first time with the text of previous editions and newspaper versions by the editor, Richard Herne Shepherd. The four volumes (with a Supplement to vol. ii) were reissued by Messrs.

Macmillan in 1880.

Finally, in the one-volume edition of the _Poetical Works_ issued by Messrs. Macmillan in 1893, J. D. Campbell included in the text some twenty poems and in the Appendix a large number of poetical fragments and first drafts then printed for the first time from MS.

The frontispiece of this edition is a photogravure by Mr. Emery Walker, from a pencil sketch (_circ._ 1818) by C. R. Leslie, R.A., in the possession of the Editor. An engraving of the sketch, by Henry Meyer, is dated April, 1819.

The vignette on the t.i.tle-page is taken from the impression of a seal, stamped on the fly-leaf of one of Coleridge's Notebooks.

I desire to express my thanks to my kinsman Lord Coleridge for opportunity kindly afforded me of collating the text of the fragments first published in 1893 with the original MSS. in his possession, and of making further extracts; to Mr. Gordon Wordsworth for permitting me to print a first draft of the poem addressed to his ancestor on the 'Growth of an Individual Mind'; and to Miss Arnold of Fox How for a copy of the first draft of the lines 'On Revisiting the Sea-sh.o.r.e'.

I have also to acknowledge the kindness and courtesy of the Authorities of Rugby School, who permitted me to inspect and to make use of an annotated copy of Coleridge's translation of Schiller's 'Piccolomini', and to publish first drafts of 'The Eolian Harp' and other poems which had formerly belonged to Joseph Cottle and were presented by Mr.

Shadworth Hodgson to the School Library.

I am indebted to my friend Mr. Thomas Hutchinson for valuable information with regard to the authors.h.i.+p of some of the fragments, and for advice and a.s.sistance in settling the text of the 'Metrical Experiments' and other points of difficulty.

I have acknowledged in a prefatory note to the epigrams my obligation to Dr. Hermann Georg Fiedler, Taylorian Professor of the German Language and Literature at Oxford, in respect of his verifications of the German originals of many of the epigrams published by Coleridge in the _Morning Post_ and elsewhere.

Lastly, I wish to thank Mr. H. S. Milford for the invaluable a.s.sistance which he afforded me in revising my collation of the 'Songs of the Pixies' and the 'Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie', and some of the earlier poems, and the Reader of the Oxford University Press for numerous hints and suggestions, and for the infinite care which he has bestowed on the correction of slips of my own or errors of the press.

ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

POETICAL WORKS