"He prayeth best, who loveth best 615 All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all."

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

620 Is gone and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the Bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man

625 He rose the morrow morn.

(1-142) Observe the form of verse. Note the dramatic setting of the poem. The Mariner's story is interrupted from time to time by the merriness within the marriage hall. Throughout the poem, classify grotesque, weird imagery, and all touches that characterise the Romantic School. Allegorically, ice is presented as lending an element of the horrible to the situation of the Mariner in order to show that the man has a frozen heart. Allegorically, the change from ice to the heat of tropical waters means that God is thawing out the man's heart. The Mariner becomes lord of his sin. Nemesis now begins to work. (232235) Cf. Byron's "Childe Harold," Canto I.:

"And now I'm in the world alone,

Upon the wide, wide sea:

But why should I for others groan,

When none will sigh for me?"

(244-247) Cf. Wordsworth's "Excursion," Book I.:

the good die first,

And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket."

(255-256) Cf. Tennyson's "In Memoriam,” LI. :

"There must be wisdom with great Death:

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'.

"Be near us when we climb or fall:

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
With larger other eyes than ours,

To make allowance for us all."

In the Mariner's recognition of supernal beauty in the ugliness of the water-snakes, one feels that a wonderful change has come to the man who hated the albatross. In "The Pilgrim's Progress" how did Christian rid himself of his burden? Note the physical blessings which follow the Mariner's regeneration. Observe that Nemesis is exacting in requiring him to love that which he had hated. (446–451) Read, in Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia, "Witches, And Other Night Fears," wherein is analysed this fear which is purely spiritual, and compare with De Quincey's use of the same in his "Spanish Nun" 17.-" Kate stands alone on the Summit of the Andes." Irving in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" has analysed this spiritual fear. (492–495) The dead are ever ready to help the living who are truly repentant. (514-625) From an allegorical point of view, the ship's sinking is necessary. His past wicked environment is forever removed. Observe the knowledge of human nature shown by Coleridge in binding the Mariner to a constant reiteration of his story. The Mariner's selection of a wedding-guest as an auditor is artistically delightful. Where is the résumé of the entire poem?

It is sometimes better to attend the funeral of a wicked man's past than it is to attend a man's wedding that promises everything for his future. The doors of the hall are flung open so that we may know the wedding has taken place. This comedy makes the tragedy all the more emphatic, adding an illumination to the reality of the funeral of his past wickedness, and finally making us believe that he has become a bridegroom fit for the marriage supper of the Lamb.

5

KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 10 And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
15 As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
20 Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.

25 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
30 Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

35 It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :

40

45

50

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me,

Her symphony and song,

To such deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

(1-54) Why is this poem a fragment? Comment on the arrangement of sibilants. In (18) observe the explosives and the labio-dentals. In (19) notice the alternate alliteration. Comment on the general use of assonance. Observe the characteristic touches of the Romantic School. Coleridge desires the power possessed by the Abyssinian maid in order that he may be the lyric bard of all the ages. Edgar A. Poe expresses a similar wish in his "Israfel." Compare the effect of the music of Israfel's lute with that of the Abyssinian maid's dulcimer. Classify and analyse the finest phrases.

ROBERT SOUTHEY

1774-1843

he was a poet; and, by all men's confession, a respectable poet, brilliant in his descriptive powers, and fascinating in his narration, however much he might want of 'The vision and the faculty divine.' - De Quincey.

Optional Poems

The Battle Of Blenheim.

Remembrance.

The Holly-Tree.

The Inchcape Rock.

My Days Among The Dead Are Passed.

The Cataract Of Lodore.

Verses To A Dead Friend.

THE CURSE

THE CURSE OF KEHAMA, II. 14

(Ladurlad, a man of India, in the act of defending the purity of his daughter, Kailyal, had slain the wicked Arvalan, son of Kehama, the mighty rajah-god of evil. Kehama called up the spirit of his son from the tomb, and, finding him clamoring for lasting revenge on Ladurlad, pronounced the following curse on the murderer of Arvalan.)