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 ON THE 
 
 m€3^9i3^%3M<^ se9i3a. 
 
 By S. T. COLERIDGE, 
 
 Tit' av ^e Seivos ogio[j^a,vfeiXi ttwas 
 'Zrgo^gi, tm^oivvuiv ^gotj^tots e^")/*'*'?' 
 
 To (kiWov Yj^ef xxt <rv [i-ijv ■rxy(ei itx^u:v 
 Ay«v y' aAijJojtAayrtv ^' gf s(f . 
 
 jEschy. Agamem. I22S. 
 
 BRISTO L; 
 
 PRINTED BY N. BIGGS, 
 
 AND SOLD BY J. PARSONS, PATERNOSTER-ROW, lONDOTf. 
 
 1796. 
 
To THOMAS POOLE, of Stowey. 
 
 My Dear Friend, 
 
 noON after the commencement of this month, the Editor of 
 the Cambridge InteUigencer (a newspaper conducted with so 
 much abihty, and such unmixed and fearless zeal for the 
 interests of Piety and Freedom, that I cannot but think my 
 poetry honoured by being permitted to appear in it), re-, 
 quested me, by Letter, to furnish him with some Lines for 
 the last day of this Year. I promised him that I would make 
 the attempt ; but, almost immediately after, a rheumatic 
 complaint seized on my head, and continued to prevent the 
 possibility of poetic compofition till within the lafl three 
 days. So in the course of the last three days the following 
 Ode was produced. In general, when an Author informs 
 the Public that his production was struck off in a great hurry, 
 he offers an insult, not ah excuse. But I trust that the 
 present case is an exception, and that the peculiar circum- 
 stances, which obliged me to write with such unusual 
 rapidity, give a propriety to my professions of it ; nee nunc 
 earn apud te ja6lo, sed et ceteris indico ; ne quis asperiore 
 lima carmen examinet, et a confuso scriptum et quod frigidum 
 erat ni statim traderem. (I avail myself of the words of 
 Statius, and hope that I shall likewise be able to say of any 
 
weightier publication, what he has declared of his Thebaid, 
 that it had been tortured* with a laborious Polish.) 
 
 For me to discuss the literary merits of this hasty compo- 
 sition, were idle and presumptuous. If it be found to possess 
 that Impetuosity of Transition, and that Precipitation of 
 Fancy and Feeling, which are the ^j-jmiza/ excellencies of 
 tlie sublimer Ode, its deficiency in less important respefts will 
 be easily pardoned by those, from whom alone praise could 
 give me pleasure : and whose minuter criticisms will be dis- 
 armed by the refleftion, that these Lines were conceived 
 " not in the soft obscurities of Retirement, or under thfe 
 Shelter of Academic Groves, but amidst inconvenience and 
 distraftion, in sickness and in sorrow." I am more anxious, 
 lest the moral spirit of the Ode should be' mistaken. You, 
 I am sure, will not fail to recolleft, that among the Ancients, 
 the Bard and the Prophet were one and the same chara6ler ; 
 and you know, that although I prophesy curses, I pray fer- 
 vently for blessings. 
 
 Farewell, Brother of my Soul ! 
 
 O ever found the same, 
 
 And trusted and belov'd ! 
 
 Never without an emotion of honest pride do I subscribe myself 
 
 Your grateful and affe6iionate Friend, 
 
 BRISTOL, S. T, COLERIDGE. 
 
 December 20, 1 79O. 
 
 * Multa cruciata lima. 
 
D E 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEPARTING YEAR. 
 
 STROPHE I. 
 
 OPIRIT, who sweepest the wild Harp of Time, 
 It is most hard with an untroubled Ear 
 Thy dark inwoven Harmonics to hear! 
 Yet, mine eye fixt on Heaven's unchanged clime. 
 Long had I listen'd, free from mortal fear. 
 With inward stillness and a bowed mind : 
 When lo! far onwards waving on the wind 
 I saw the skirts of the Departing Year! 
 
 Starting from my filent sadness 
 
 Then with no unholy madness. 
 Ere yet the entered cloud forbade my sight, 
 I rais'd th' impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. 
 
 B 
 

 
 STROPHE II. 
 
 Hither from the recent Tomb ; 
 
 From the Prison's direr gloom; 
 
 From Poverty's heart-wasting languish ; 
 
 From Distemper's midnight anguish : 
 
 Or where his two bright torches blending 
 
 Love illumines Manhood's maze ; 
 
 Or where o'er cradled Infants bending 
 
 -Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze : 
 
 Hither, in perplexed dance. 
 
 Ye Woes, and young-eyed Joys, advance! 
 
 By Time's wild harp, and by the Hand 
 
 Whose indefatigable Sweep 
 
 Forbids its fateful strings to sleep, 
 I bid you haste, a mixt tumultuous band ! 
 
 From every private bower. 
 
 And each domestic hearth. 
 
 Haste for one solemn hour; 
 And with a loud and yet a louder voice 
 O'er the sore travail of the common earth 
 
 Weep and rejoice ! 
 Seiz'd in sore travail and portentous birth 
 
(Her eye-balls flashing a pernicious glare) 
 
 Sick Nature struggles ! Hark — her pangs increase \ 
 
 Her groans are horrible ! But 6 ! most fair 
 
 The promis'd Twins, she bears — Equality and Peace f 
 
 EPODK 
 
 I mark'd Ambition in his war-array : 
 
 I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry — 
 
 " Ah ! whither does the Northern Conqueress stay ? 
 
 Northern Conqueress. A Subsidiary Treaty had been just 
 
 concluded ; and Russia was to have furnished more effecStual 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 
 
 charadler of Woman Woman, that complex term for Mother^ 
 
 Sister, Wife ! ) I rejoice, as at the disenshrining of a Daemon ! 
 I rejoice, as at the extindtion of the evil Principle impersonated ! 
 This very day, six years ago, the massacre of Ismail was perpetrated. 
 Thirty thousand- human beings. Men, Women i^Children, 
 murdered in cold blood, for no other crime, than that their Garrison 
 had defended the place with perseverance and bravery 1 Why should 
 I recall 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 hej: private Hours ! 
 I have no wish to qualify myself for the office of Historiographer to 
 the King of Hell ! December 23, IJQQ- 
 
8 
 
 '" Groans not her Chariot o'er its onward way ? 
 Fly, mailed Monarch, fly! 
 Stunn'd by Death's " twice mortal " mace 
 No more on Murder's lurid face 
 
 Th' insatiate Hag shall glote with drunken eye 1 
 Manes of th' unnumbered Slain i 
 Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain! 
 Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, 
 "When human Ruin cho'k'd the streams. 
 Fell in Conquest's glutted hour 
 Mid Women's shrieks and Infant's screams ; 
 Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir 
 Loud-laughing, red-eyed Massacre ! 
 Spirits of th' uncoffin'd Slain, 
 
 / Sudden blasts of Triumph swelling 
 Oft at night, in misty train 
 Rush around her narrow Dwelling ! 
 Th' exterminating Fiend is fled— 
 (Foul her Life and dark her Doom!) 
 Mighty Army of the Dead, 
 Dance, like Death-fires, round her Tomb ! 
 Then with prophetic song relate 
 Each some scepter'd Murderer's fate ! 
 
9 
 
 When shall scepter 'd Slaughter cease ? 
 Awhile He cxouch'd, O Vi6tor France ! 
 Beneath the Ught'ning of thy Lance, 
 With treacherous dalliance wooing Peace. 
 But soon up-springing from his dastard trance 
 
 With treacherous dalliance wooing Peace. — To juggle this 
 easily-juggled people into better humour with the supplies (and 
 themselves, perhaps, affrighted by the successes of the French,) 
 our Ministry sent an ambassador to Paris to sue for Peace. The 
 Supplies are granted : and in the mean time the Arch-duk© 
 Charles turns the scale of Vidlory on the Rhine, and Buonaparte 
 is checked before Mantua. Straightways, our courtly Messenger 
 is commanded to uncurl his lips, and propose to the lofty Re- 
 public to restore all its conquests, and to suffer England to retaitt 
 • all hers, (at least all her .important ones) as the only terms of 
 Peace, and the ultimatum of the negociation ! 
 
 TaA«(ya HAPAKOnA TTfWT'OTrijfitov. 
 
 ^SCHTL. Ag. 230. 
 
 The friends of Freedom in this country are idle. Some are timid ; 
 some are selfish ; and many the torpedo touch of hopelessness has 
 numbed into inactivity. We would fain hope, that (if the above 
 account be accurate — it is only the French account) this dread- 
 ful instance of infatuation in our ministry will rouse them to one 
 effort more ; and that at one and the same time in our different 
 great towns the people- will be called on to think solemnly, and 
 declare their thoughts fearlessly, by every method, which the ron/uint 
 of the constitution allows. 
 
 C 
 
10 
 
 The boastful, bloody Son of Pride betray'd 
 His Hatred of the blest and blessing Maid. 
 One cloud, O Freedom ! cross'd thy orb of Light 
 And sure, be deem'd, that Orb was quench'd in night 
 For still does Madness roam on Guilt's bleak dizzy height I 
 
 •/. 
 
 r/i^- 
 
 /''To^ //.' . 
 
 ANTISTROPHE I. 
 
 Departing Year ! 'twas on no earthly shore 
 My Soul beheld thy Vision. Where, alone. 
 Voiceless and stern, before the Cloudy Throne 
 Aye Memory sits; there, garmented with gore, 
 With many an unimaginable groan 
 Thou storiedst thy sad Hours ! Silence ensued : 
 Deep Silence o'er th' etherial Multitude, 
 Whose purple Locks with snow-white Glories shone. 
 Then, his eye wild ardors glancing. 
 From the choired Gods advancing, 
 The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet 
 And stood up beautiful before the Cloudy Seat ! 
 
 My Soul beheld thy Vision. — i. e. Thy Image in a Vision.. 
 
H 
 
 ANTISTROPHE II. 
 
 On every Haq), on every Tongue 
 While the mute Enchantment hung ; 
 Like Midnight from a thundercloud, 
 Spake the sudden Spirit loud — 
 " Thou in stormy Blackness throning 
 "" Love and uncreated Light, j 
 
 " By the Earth's unsolac'd groaning / 
 
 " Seize thy terrors. Arm of Might \ ' 
 
 " By Belgium's corse-impeded flood ! 
 " By Vendee steaming Brother's, blood! 
 " By Peace with proffer'd insult scar'd, 
 *' Masked hate, and envying scorn ! 
 " By Years of Havoc yet unborn; 
 *' And Hunger s bosom to the frost- winds bar'd f 
 " But chief by Afric's wrongs 
 " Strange, horrible, and foul ! 
 " By what deep Guilt belongs 
 « To the deaf Synod, " full of gifts and lies \" 
 " By Wealth's insensate Laugh ! By Torture's Howl ! 
 " Avenger, rise ! 
 
 Belgium's corse-impeded flood. — The Rhine. 
 
12 
 
 " For ever shall the bloody Island scowl? 
 " For aye unbroken, shall her cruel Bow 
 " Shoot Famine's arrows o'er thy ravag'd World ? 
 " Hark ! how wide Nature joins her groans below — 
 " Rise, God of Nature, rise! Why sleep thy Bolts unhurl'd ? 
 
 — Moody island scowl ? 
 " In Europe the smoking villages of Flanders and the putrified fields 
 of La Vendee — from Africa the unnumbered vidlims of a detestable 
 Slave-trade — in Asia the desolated plains of Indostan and the 
 million whom a rice-contracEting Governor destroyed by famine — 
 in America the recent enormities of our scalp-merchants — the four 
 quarters of the globe groan beneath the intolerable iniquity of this 
 nation 1" Addresses to the People, p, 46. 
 
13 
 
 EPODE II. 
 
 The Voice had ceas'd, the Phantoms fled. 
 Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread. 
 And ever when the dream of night 
 Renews the vision to my sight. 
 Cold sweat-damps gather on my limbs. 
 My Ears throb hot, my eye-balls start. 
 My Brain with horrid tumult swimsj 
 Wild is the Tempest of my Heart ; 
 And my thick and struggling breath 
 Imitates the toil of Death! 
 No uglier agony confounds 
 The Soldier on the war-field spread. 
 When all foredone with toil and wounds 
 Death-like he dozes among heaps of Dead ! 
 (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled. 
 And the Night -wind clamours hoarse ; 
 See ! the startful Wretch's head 
 Lies pillow'd on a Brother's Corse !) 
 O doom'd to fall, enslav'd and vile, 
 O Albion ! O ray mother Isle ! 
 Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers, 
 
 D 
 
14 
 
 Glitter ""green with ;suftny showers ; 
 
 Thy grassy Upland's gentle Swells 
 
 Echo to the Bleat of Flocks ; 
 
 (Those grassy Hills, those glitt'ring Dells 
 
 Proudly ramparted with rocks) 
 
 And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild 
 
 Speaks safety to his Island-child. 
 
 Hence for many a fearless age 
 
 Has social Quiet lov'd thy shore ; 
 
 Nor ever sworded Fbeman's rage 
 
 Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore. 
 
 Disclaim'd of Heaven T mad Av'rice at thy side, 
 
 At coward distance, yet with kindling pridie — 
 
 Safe 'mid thy herds and corn-fields thou hast stood. 
 
 And joih'd the yell of Famine and of Blood. 
 
 All nations curse thee : and with eager wond'ring 
 
 Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream ! 
 
 Strange-eyed Destruction, who with many a dream 
 
 Of central flames thro' nether seas upthund'ring 
 
 Soothes her fierce solitude , yet (as she lies 
 
 Stretch'd on the marge of some fire-flashing fount 
 
 In the black chamber of a sulphur'd mount,) 
 
15 
 
 If ever to herlidless dragon eyes, 
 
 Albion ! thy predestin'd ruins rise^ 
 
 The Fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, 
 Mutt'ring distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep. 
 
 Away, my soul, away I 
 In vain, in vain, the birds of warning sing — 
 And hark ! I hear the famin'd brood of prey 
 Flap their knk pennons on the groaning wind ! 
 
 Away, my Soul, away ! > 
 
 1 unpartaking of the evit thing. 
 With daily prayer, and daily toil 
 Soliciting my scant and blameless soil, 
 Have wail'd my country with a loud lament. 
 Now I recenter my immortal mind i 
 In the long sabbath of high self-content ; | 
 Cleans'd from the fleshly Passions that bedim. 1 
 God's Image, Sister of the Seraphim. j 
 
 LINES 
 
10 
 
 L.-¥''^ E S 
 
 Addressed to a young man of Fortune who abandoned himself to 
 an indolent and causeless Melancholy. ■ ' 
 
 .ENCE, that fantastic. Wantonness of Woe 
 
 O Youth to partial Fortune A'dinly dear! 
 To plunder'd WANT!sihalf-shelter'd Hovel go. 
 
 Go,; and some hunger-bitten Infant hear 
 
 Moan haply in a dying Mother's Ear ; ■ 
 Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood 
 O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd. 
 Pace round some Widov/'s grave, v/hose dearer Part 
 
 Was slaughter'd, wh^rq o'er his. uncoiEn'd limbs 
 The flocking Flesh-birds scream'd ! Then, while thy Heart 
 Groans, and thine eyes a fiercer Sorro.w dims. 
 Know (and the Truth shall kindle, thy young mind) 
 
 What Nature makes thee mourn, she Taids thee heal ! 
 O abjetU if to sickly Dreams resign'd 
 
 All effortless thou leave Earth's common-weal 
 A prey, to the thron'd Murderers of Mankind ! 
 
 %. ColfjTitsse* 
 
WM. MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 
 
 Chairman, 
 THOMAS J. WISE, 
 
 Hon. Sec. 
 
 Hon. Secretary : Thomas J. Wise, 
 
 62, ASHLET KoAB, Ckoooh Hili,, 
 London, N. 
 
 ^^'^Cx.-<x-'^^i^ ^'f^n^/e^ 
 
 
 
 
 / ^^^^ 
 


 
 V .'■*•* - 
 
 Many of the first editions of the wvitings 
 I of S. T. Colevidgo arc of very considerable 
 I scarcity, but the most uncommon of all is a | 
 I thin quarto pamphlet of sixteen" pages, en- 
 I titled, "Ode | on the | Departinf; Year. | 
 I By S. T. Coleridge. ( YQiustation from \ 
 \2Eschylus] I Bristol; | Printed by N.Biggs, 1 
 laud sold by J. Parsons, Paternoster-row, 
 I London. | 1796." Of this brochure no copy I 
 lis believed to have appeared for either 
 I public or private sale during the last I 
 eighteen years ; and indeed, only three 
 examples in all were "Mntil quite recently 
 known to Coleridge specialists. One of 
 these is in tho Rowfant Library, the posses- 
 sion of Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson ;, a 
 second is preserved in the British Museum 
 — both being sadly '" cut." Such being the | 
 case, the pamphlet has naturally been the 
 object of keen search on the part of hunters 
 after bibliographical rarities. 
 
 But a short while since a copy came to | 
 I light, and was sold by Messrs. Sotheby, 
 I Wilkinson and Hodge on April 18 (the third | 
 I day of the Buckley sale) for £21 10s., a by 
 I no means unreasonable price. It was bound I 
 1 up in a volume of old quarto tracts, amongst I 
 [which was an example of Coleridge's " Fears I 
 I in Solitude," Bristol, 1798 ; and also a very | 
 I poor and much dilapidated copy of Words- 
 I worth's " An Evening Walk," London, 1793. 
 I The volume was bought upon commission I 
 I for Mr. Thomas J. Wise. And now I 
 [another specimen has been unearthed. It I 
 I was discovered by a fortunate individual! 
 I who espied it lurking in a handle of old I 
 I books and tracts which was sold, with other r 
 I lots, in the Bomney sale at Christie's on I 
 1 Thursday last. It was not separately cata- 
 I logned, and thei-efore passed almost un- 
 I noticed, and was knocked down for_ the I 
 modest sum of £4 3s., a splendid bargain I 
 for its lucky finder, who "generously passed! 
 it on to his friend Mr. Wise. Both copies I 
 are in first-rate condition, being fresh and | 
 cleai\ with the leaves entirely untrimmed.