SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 109 And how she wept, and clasped his knees; | On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc ! The scorn that crazed his brain; And that she nursed him in a cave, A dying man he lay; - His dying words—but when I reached All impulses of soul and sense The rich and balmy eve; And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, Subdued and cherished long. She wept with pity and delight, I heard her breathe my name. Her bosom heaved, she stepped aside, She half enclosed me with her arms, Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wert blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy, Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! From dark and icycaverns called you forth, | Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. CHRISTABEL. PART I. 'T Is the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing And hark, again! the crowing cock, Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Is the night chilly and dark? The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle gate? She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; |