The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Taylor Coleridge

      TO A YOUNG FRIEND

      ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR

      Composed in 1796

      A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep,

       But a green mountain variously up-piled,

      Where o’er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep,

      Or colour’d lichens with slow oozing weep;

       Where cypress and the darker yew start wild; 5

      And, ‘mid the summer torrent’s gentle dash

      Dance brighten’d the red clusters of the ash;

       Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguil’d,

      Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep;

       Till haply startled by some fleecy dam, 10

      That rustling on the bushy cliff above

      With melancholy bleat of anxious love,

       Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb:

       Such a green mountain ‘twere most sweet to climb,

      E’en while the bosom ach’d with loneliness — 15

      How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless

       The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime

      Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round,

      Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!

      O then ‘twere loveliest sympathy, to mark 20

      The berries of the half-uprooted ash

      Dripping and bright; and list the torrent’s dash, —

       Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,

      Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;

      In social silence now, and now to unlock 25

      The treasur’d heart; arm linked in friendly arm,

      Save if the one, his muse’s witching charm

      Muttering browbent, at unwatch’d distance lag;

       Till high o’er head his beckoning friend appears,

      And from the forehead of the topmost crag 30

       Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears

      That shadowing Pine its old romantic limbs,

       Which latest shall detain the enamour’d sight

      Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,

       Tinged yellow with the rich departing light; 35

       And haply, bason’d in some unsunn’d cleft,

      A beauteous spring, the rock’s collected tears,

      Sleeps shelter’d there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!

       Together thus, the world’s vain turmoil left,

      Stretch’d on the crag, and shadow’d by the pine, 40

       And bending o’er the clear delicious fount,

      Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine

      To cheat our noons in moralising mood,

      While west-winds fann’d our temples toil-bedew’d:

       Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, 45

      To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,

      Where smiling with blue eye, Domestic Bliss

      Gives this the Husband’s, that the Brother’s kiss!

      Thus rudely vers’d in allegoric lore,

      The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace; 50

      That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,

      And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour

       To glad, and fertilise the subject plains;

      That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,

      And many a fancy-blest and holy sod 55

       Where Inspiration, his diviner strains

      Low-murmuring, lay; and starting from the rock’s

      Stiff evergreens, (whose spreading foliage mocks

      Want’s barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,

      And Bigotry’s mad fire-invoking rage!) 60

      O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,

      Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;

       And from the stirring world uplifted high

      (Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,

      To quiet musings shall attune the mind, 65

       And oft the melancholy theme supply),

       There, while the prospect through the gazing eye

       Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,

      We’ll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,

      Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, 70

       As neighbouring fountains image each the whole:

      Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth

       We’ll discipline the heart to pure delight,

      Rekindling sober joy’s domestic flame.

      They whom I love shall love thee, honour’d youth! 75

       Now may Heaven realise this vision bright!