PIBROCH OF DONALD DHU. Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, Come from deep gleen, and True heart that wears one, Leave untended the herd, Come as the winds come, when Come as the waves come, when Navies are stranded: Faster come, faster come, Faster and faster, Chief, vassal, page, and groom, Tenant and master. Fast they come, fast they come; Blended with heather. Cast your plaids, draw your blades, Forward each man set! Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, Knell for the onset! THE FORAY. The last of our steers on the board has been spread, Up! up, my brave kinsmen! belt swords and begone! The eyes, that so lately mix'l glances with ours, The rain is descending; the wind rises loud; THE VIOLET. The violet in her green-wood bower, Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle, May boast itself the fairest flower In glen, or copse, or forest dingle. Though fair her gems of azure hue, Beneath the dew-drop's weight reclining, I've seen an eye of lovelier blue, More sweet through watery lustre shining. The summer sun that dew shall dry, Nor longer in my false love's eye too stubbornly warped in the ways of the old world to be dazzled with the prospects of the new political millenium; upon which the rejected reformers resolved to shake the dust of Europe from their feet, and carry their plans into the depths of the American forests. There a community was to be formed, in which every person was to be uppermost at once, and all things were to be in common; while guilt and care, pain and sickness, were to be utterly unknown. It was such a plan as frequently occurs among the amiable reveries of youthful minds, before experience has demonstrated its fallacy. But this hallucination in favour of their impossible Pantisocracy ended by the whole three philosophers falling in love, at Bristol, with three sisters, whom they afterwards married-thus leaving America and the world to be enlightened as they best might. Coleridge became a husband in 1795, and as his chief dependance was upon his pen, he started a newspaper, called The Watchman, which failed, and preached every Sunday at a Unitarian chapel in Taunton. In 1798, his narrow circumstances were improved by a pension from one of his wealthy admirers of 100%. per annum, by which he was enabled to visit Germany, and attend the lectures of its most distinguished professors. On returning to England, instead of devoting himself to poetry, he wasted his rich intellectual resources and gigantic powers in political writings, which were little read, because they were far above the capacities of the many-in profound metaphysical theories, which few cared for, or were able to appreciate and in those splendid conversational displays that arrested every ear, but left no permanent impression upon the mind of society at large. It was thus that he spent the greater portion of his long life, the latter part of which was passed at Highgate, at the house of a friend, where he had the use of a good garden, in which he used to walk for hours, absorbed in theological or metaphysical re veries. He died on the 25th of July, 1834. FROM LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHANT. I know the place where Lewti lies, It is a breezy jasmine bower, The nightingale sings o'er her head: And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, I then might view her bosom white Heaving lovely to my sight, As these two swans together heave On the gently swelling wave. Oh! that she saw me in a dream, And dreamt that I had died for care; THIS great poet, critic, and metaphysician, was born at Ottery St. Mary, a town in Devonshire, of which his father was vicar, in 1773. When he was ten years old he was admitted into Christ's Hospital, London, where he was carefully instructed, not merely in the usual branches of a common, and also a classical education, but taught the beauties of classical literature, and the critical principles of excellence in every species of poetical composition. Thus trained in a system superior to that of most of our English institutions, Coleridge, at the age of eighteen, obtained a University exhibition, and removed to Jesus College, Cambridge. There he was remarkable rather for an eccentric disposition, and liveliness of spirit, than literary ambition or proficiency. He had been little more than two years at College, when, being rendered desperate by the combined effects of pecuniary difficulties and a fever-fit of love, he left Cambridge abruptly, repaired to London, and, after wandering about for some time in a state of frenzy, aggravated by frequent intoxication, he ended by enlisting in the 15th Dragoons, under the name of Clumberbacht. His singular appearance, however, and his conversation, so unlike those of a common trooper, excited the surprise of the whole regiment, which was by no means allayed when Coleridge, on one occasion, entered into a scientific argument with the regimental surgeon, and fairly overwhelmed him with a mass of erudition. By the kindness of the officers he was soon extricated from his uncongenial situation as a dragoon; and after this he published a small volume of poems, in which the depth of thought and poetical feeling were discerned by the critics of the day, notwithstanding the obscurities with which it frequently abounded. During the same year (1794), he published The Fall of Robespierre, which he wrote in conjunction with Southey. During the winter, also, he delivered a course of Lectures, at Bristol, on the French Revolution. Among the speculations of Coleridge, over which he had brooded for some time past, was one on the regeneration and perfectibility of the human race; and having enlisted Southey and Lovell in the cause, this youthful triumvirate resolved to reduce their theories to practice, and commenced their apostleship in the commercial town of Bristol. But the merchants and manufacturers were too stubbornly warped in the ways of the old world to be dazzled with the prospects of the new political millenium; upon which the rejected reformers resolved to shake the dust of Europe from their feet, and carry their plans into the depths of the American forests. There a community was to be formed, in which every person was to be uppermost at once, and all things were to be in common; while guilt and care, pain and sickness, were to be utterly unknown. It was such a plan as frequently occurs among the amiable reveries of youthful minds, before experience has demonstrated its fallacy. But this hallucination in favour of their impossible Pantisocracy ended by the whole three philosophers falling in love, at Bristol, with three sisters, whom they afterwards married-thus leaving America and the world to be enlightened as they best might. Coleridge became a husband in 1795, and as his chief dependance was upon his pen, he started a newspaper, called The Watchman, which failed, and preached every Sunday at a Unitarian chapel in Taunton. In 1798, his narrow circumstances were improved by a pensión from one of his wealthy admirers of 1007. per annum, by which he was enabled to visit Germany, and attend the lectures of its most distinguished professors. On returning to England, instead of devoting himself to poetry, he wasted his rich intellectual resources and gigantic powers in political writings, which were little read, because they were far above the capacities of the many-in profound metaphysical theories, which few cared for, or were able to appreciate and in those splendid conversational displays that arrested every ear, but left no permanent impression upon the mind of society at large. It was thus that he spent the greater portion of his long life, the latter part of which was passed at Highgate, at the house of a friend, where he had the use of a good garden, in which he used to walk for hours, absorbed in theological or metaphysical re-. He died on the 25th of July, 1834. veries. |