Coleridges writings vol 5 on the sublime

1 ‘These soul-ennobling views’: Enlightenment and Sublimity in Coleridge’s Early Writings 13 2 ‘A stirring & inquietude of Fancy’: Coleridge and the Sublimity of Landscape 35 3 ‘A grand

Coleridge’s Writings

On the Sublime

Volume 5

Edited by David Vallins

General Editor: John Beer

Volume 5: On the Sublime

Myriad-minded in his intellectual interests, Coleridge often passed quickly from one subject to another, so that the range and mass of the materials he left can be bewildering to later readers Coleridge’s Writings is a series addressed

to those who wish to have a guide to his important statements on particular subjects Each volume presents his writings in a major field of human knowledge

or thought, tracing the development of his ideas Connections are also made with relevant writings in the period, suggesting the extent to which Coleridge was either summing up, contributing to or reacting against current develop- ments Each volume is produced by a specialist in the field; the general editor

is John Beer, Professor of English Literature at Cambridge, who has published various studies of Coleridge’s thought and poetry

Volume 1 ON POLITICS AND SOCIETY

edited by John Morrow

Volume 2 ON HUMANITY

edited by Anya Taylor

Volume 3 ON LANGUAGE

edited by A.C Goodson

Volume 4 ON RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY

edited by John Beer

Volume 5 ON THE SUBLIME

edited by David Vallins

publication may be made without written permission

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages The author has asserted his right to be identified

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First published 2003 by

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Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772–1834.

On the sublime/edited by David Vallins.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

which regulates all relations, tempers all passions, and gives power to come or support all suffering; and which is not to be shaken by aught earthly, for it belongs not to the earth—namely, the principle of religion, the living and substantial faith ‘which passeth all understanding,’ as the cloud-piercing rock, which overhangs the strong-hold of which it had been the quarry and remains the foundation This elevation of the spirit above the semblances of custom and the senses to a world of spirit, this life in the idea, even in the supreme and godlike, which alone merits the name of life, and without which our organic life is but a state of somnambulism; this it

over-is which affords the sole sure anchorage in the storm, and at the same time the substantiating principle of all true wisdom, the satisfactory solution of all the contradictions of human nature, of the whole riddle of the world

(Friend [CC], 1: 523–4)

1 ‘These soul-ennobling views’: Enlightenment

and Sublimity in Coleridge’s Early Writings 13

2 ‘A stirring & inquietude of Fancy’: Coleridge

and the Sublimity of Landscape 35

3 ‘A grand feeling of the unimaginable’:

Transcendence in Literature and the Visual Arts 81

vi The psychology of the sublime 151

5 ‘An intuitive beholding’: Aspects of the Sublime in

Coleridge’s Religious Thought 155

The appearance of hitherto unpublished material during the lasthundred years has brought out more fully the range and complexity

of Coleridge’s intelligence and knowledge Complete publication of

the Notebooks and Collected Works, together with that of the ously assembled Collected Letters, have made it increasingly evident

previ-that this was the most extraordinary English mind of the time Thespecialist or more general student who wishes to know whatColeridge had to say on a particular subject may, however, find thesheer mass of materials bewildering, since in his less formal writings

he passed quickly from one subject to another Coleridge’s Writings is

a series addressed to such readers In each volume a particular area ofColeridge’s interest is explored, with an attempt to present his mostsignificant statements and to show the development of his thought

on the subject in question

Among the various interests attracting Coleridge during his career,poetry, and the appreciation and criticism of literature, remainedconstant presences and the achievement of the sublime a dominantaspiration The tragedies of Shakespeare marked one recent peak,while the work of Milton, who had come closest to producing anEnglish form of epic poetry, called for emulation—and even supple-mentation, given the advances in knowledge and thought that hadtaken place since his death The sublime was an ideal which could beaimed for not only poetically but intellectually: indeed, Coleridgeremained unsure whether his aim should be to write an epic poem(the chief remaining subject for such an attempt being, he thought,

‘The Fall of Jerusalem’) or an opus maximum in philosophy (to becalled the ‘Assertion of Religion’, perhaps)

The loftiness of his aims was recognized in his circle—as is

suggested by Southey’s rather withering description of The Ancient

Mariner as a ‘Dutch attempt at German sublimity’ Coleridge’s

subse-quent attempts at demonstrating the sublimity of Nature, evident inmany notebook descriptions, emerge openly in a poem such as the

‘Hymn before Sunrise’ As can be seen from the latter, however, a strongreligious element was becoming increasingly bound up for him with

the quality Meanwhile, in his lectures and works of criticism, he wasexploring the extent to which it had informed works of art in morethan one medium, ranging from the achievements of Shakespeareand Milton to the work of cathedral architects Since his psycho-logical investigations had led him to enquire into the extent to which

it should be thought of as a mental, or psychic, concept, moreover,this too was a theme constantly to be traced in his intellectual specu-lations and notably in his religious writing Above all, any linkbetween the human mind and the divine called, in his view, for an

attitude of devotion His Biographia Literaria ends in a turn of adoration

towards the heavenly sublime which is to be repeated and elaborated

in the last and culminating section of his major religious work, Aids

to Reflection.

Further volumes in the series will contain more sidelights on thispreoccupation Volumes on the range of his criticism, on Shakespeareand on the Bible will all refer to it at times, while a volume on Natureand Vision will supplement what is presented here, particularly byfocusing on his capacity for analysis and minute observation innature as well as his ability to range sweepingly over what she has tooffer The present volume, by focusing so firmly on the Sublime itself,will thus act as a firm and central guide to ideas that permeate much

of the rest of his work As always, the editorial work in the Princetonedition will be found invaluable by the reader who wishes to inquirefurther into particular passages

J.B.B

General Editor

Firstly, this volume would not have come into being without theinitial suggestion and continuing guidance of the series-editor, JohnBeer, to whom I owe a particular debt of gratitude Secondly, the Uni-versity of Hong Kong and, more recently, the University of Hiroshimahave provided me with extensive facilities for research, as well as theopportunity to travel to libraries and conferences overseas, and I amgrateful to my colleagues in both these institutions Thirdly, EleanorBirne and Emily Rosser at Palgrave Macmillan have given me valuableassistance and advice, as well as enthusiastic support for the project.Fourthly, my research assistants—Lorraine Wong in Hong Kong, andSheila Lewis in London—provided significant help at an early stage

of the project I am also grateful to the anonymous reader of my initialproposal for the volume, whose knowledge and enthusiasm providedvaluable guidance and encouragement And the numerous Coleridgescholars with whom I have discussed related topics at successiveColeridge Summer Conferences have always been a key forum fortesting my ideas and approaches I am grateful to Oxford University

Press for permission to reproduce a number of passages from Collected

Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed E.L Griggs (copyright © Oxford

University Press, 1956–71), to The British Library for permission toreproduce a number of passages from Coleridge’s notebooks and tothe estate of Kathleen Coburn for permission to reproduce a passage

from Inquiring Spirit: A New Presentation of Coleridge from his Published

and Unpublished Prose Writings, ed Kathleen Coburn London: R.K.P.,

1951

AR (CC) S.T Coleridge, Aids to Reflection Ed John Beer, CC 9

(1993)

Ashe S.T Coleridge, Lectures and Notes on Shakespere and Other

English Poets Ed T Ashe London: George Bell, 1884

BL (CC) Biographia Literaria Ed James Engell and W Jackson Bate,

CC 7 (1983)

BL The British Library

CC The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge General ed.

Kathleen Coburn Associate ed Bart Winer Princeton N.J.and London, 1969–

CJ Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement Trans J.C Meredith.

Oxford: Clarendon, 1928; 1952

CL Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Ed E.L Griggs,

6 vols Oxford: Clarendon, 1956–71

CLE S.T Coleridge, Letters Ed E.H Coleridge 2 vols London:

Heinemann, 1895

CLU Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Ed E.L Griggs.

2 vols London: Constable, 1932

CIS Inquiring Spirit: a New Presentation of Coleridge from His

Pub-lished and UnpubPub-lished Prose Writings Ed Kathleen Coburn.

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951

CM S.T Coleridge, Marginalia Ed George Whalley et al 6 vols.

CC 12 (1980–2001)

CN The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Ed Kathleen

Coburn et al 5 vols London: Routledge, 1957–2002

CPW S.T Coleridge, Poetical Works Ed E.H Coleridge 2 vols.

Oxford: Clarendon, 1912

CPW (CC) S.T Coleridge, Poetical Works Ed J.C.C Mays 3 pts.

in 6 vols CC 16 (2001)

C&S S.T Coleridge, On the Constitution of the Church and

State Ed John Barrell London: Dent, 1972

C&S (CC) S.T Coleridge, On the Constitution of the Church and

State Ed John Colmer CC 10, (1976)

C&S (1839) S.T Coleridge, On the Constitution of the Church and

State and Lay Sermons Ed H.N Coleridge London:

William Pickering, 1839

C17thC Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century Ed R.F Brinkley.

Durham, N.C.: Duke U.P., 1955

EOT S.T Coleridge, Essays on His Times in ‘The Morning

Post’ and ‘The Courier’, Ed David V Erdman 3 vols.

CC 3, (1977)

Friend (CC) S.T Coleridge, The Friend Ed Barbara E Rooke 2

vols CC 4, (1969)

Lects 1795 S.T Coleridge, Lectures (1795) On Politics and Religion.

Ed Lewis Patton and Peter Mann CC 1, (1971)

Lects 1808–19 S.T Coleridge, Lectures 1808–19 On Literature Ed.

R.A Foakes 2 vols CC 5, (1987)

Lects 1818–19 S.T Coleridge Lectures 1818–19 On the History of

Phil-osophy Ed J.R de.J Jackson 2 vols CC 8, (2000)

LS (CC) S.T Coleridge, Lay Sermons Ed R.J White CC 6,

(1972)

London: Constable, 1936

NTPM S.T Coleridge, Notes, Theological, Political, and

Miscel-laneous Ed Derwent Coleridge London: Moxon,

1853

OED Oxford English Dictionary

PLects The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Ed Kathleen Coburn London: Pilot, 1949

America

2 vols London: Constable, 1930

W.G.T Shedd 7 vols New York Harper, 1884

STI F.W.J Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism.

Trans Peter Heath Charlottesville, Va.: UniversityPress of Virginia, 1978

SWF S.T Coleridge, Shorter Works and Fragments Ed H.J

Jack-son and J.R de J JackJack-son CC 11, (1995)

Theory of Life Ed Seth B Watson London: John

Churchill, 1848

TT Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Ed H.N Coleridge London: John Murray, 1836

TT (CC) S.T Coleridge, Table Talk Ed Carl Woodring, CC 14,

W&C Wordsworth and Coleridge: Studies in Honor of George

McLean Harper Ed E.L Griggs Princeton, N.J.: ton U.P., 1939

Wordsworth 2 vols London: Moxon, 1851

WPW The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed E de

Selincourt and Helen Darbishire 5 vols Oxford:Clarendon, 1940–1949

word Text struck out thus indicates a deletion in Coleridge’s script

manu-< > Indicates an insertion between the lines in Coleridge’s script

manu-[ ] In passages from Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

indicates an insertion by the editor

No other British Romantic focuses so consistently as Coleridge onthe importance of transcending the material, the everyday, or themundanely comprehensible in favour of a confrontation with theinfinite forces which, like many of his contemporaries, he sees asunderlying both human consciousness and the natural world

Wordsworth’s evocations—particularly in The Prelude and the

‘Intim-ations’ ode, as well as ‘Tintern Abbey’—of the sublime emotionsthrough which we recognize the divine spirit informing the universeare perhaps still better-known than the numerous passages ofColeridge’s early poems which evoke an analogous intuition Yet thenumber and variety of texts and contexts in which Coleridge empha-sizes the grandeur of the forces underlying human experience, andassociates this intuition not only with elevation and excitement, butalso with a liberating sense of calmness and of freedom from merelytemporal concerns, is in fact far greater than in the case ofWordsworth Coleridge, indeed, is the foremost British advocate of theaesthetic of transcendence with which Romanticism is so often asso-ciated—not only in the sense of recommending that aesthetic morepowerfully and philosophically than any other British author, butalso in his influence on other writers of the period, of whomWordsworth is of course the most prominent It is, indeed, among thenumerous testimonies to his influence and achievement in theserespects that historicist interpreters of Romantic idealism—mostnotably Jerome McGann—should have directed their critiques ofRomantic ‘ideology’ primarily at Coleridge, correctly identifying him

as the principal British advocate of the post-Kantian philosophies

which culminate in the works of Hegel.1 Similarly in his own period,Coleridge was prominent among those whom the younger gener-ation of Romantic authors identified as promoting idealist valuesassociated with an opposition to the French critique of aristocraticand religious authority.2 At the same time, however, it is primarily inresponse to Coleridge’s and Wordsworth’s example that Shelley, inparticular, seeks to formulate an interpretation of the sublime whicheschews ideal concerns in favour of a more modern sense of thesublimity of the forces revealed by natural science—an aim whichimplicitly asserts the value of the emotions expressed by Coleridge,while rejecting his interpretations of them.3 That Coleridge’s sublimeemotions should have been so closely associated not only withphilosophy and religion, but also with political concerns, moreover,highlights both the diversity of the contexts in which he expressessuch emotions, and at least one of the reasons why Wordsworthiansublimity is more firmly anchored in the imaginations of manyreaders Coleridge’s sublime, that is, is not only the Wordsworthianfeeling of a divine spirit animating the physical world and thehuman mind, but also a sense of the vital importance of questioningevery form of received opinion, and shaping the practical world ofsociety and politics around the renewed feeling of our own tran-scendent immateriality which that intellectual struggle engenders.Above all, it is the feeling of mental activity—of striving to compre-hend and express intuitions which always resist full encapsulation inlanguage—that Coleridge registers, and seeks to reproduce, in hisanalyses of science, psychology, morality, metaphysics, and politics,

as well as in his poetry and aesthetic writings

In order to understand the unity of Coleridge’s writings, or theenduring concerns expressed in the progression from the Conversation

Poems to Aids to Reflection and On the Constitution of the Church and

State, indeed, we must first recognize the supreme importance he

consistently attaches to the activity of pursuing, and seeking to express,the meaning of our experience Both in the speculations of his earlyverse and in his later analytical prose, Coleridge continuallyevokes—and at the same time seeks to stimulate—a religious fervourwhose function was explicitly to free himself and his readers fromthe limitations of a world unenlivened by mental effort and activity.The emotions he describes as resulting from that activity, however,are almost identical to those which Kant associates with an attempt

to comprehend the size of a mountain which resists encapsulation in

a single intuition, or with the feeling of our inward security andtranscendence which is produced by a confrontation with irresistibleforces in the natural world.4 Coleridge himself, indeed, both illustratesand explains the similarity between these emotions in describing howthe ‘intellectual movement connected with looking forward’ involves

a feeling of ‘hope’ resembling that produced by a view of mountainsummits stretching into the distance.5 Just as, in Kant’s theory,mountains produce the sense of ‘a supersensible substrate (transcend-ing both nature and our faculty of thought) which is great beyondevery standard of sense’, that is, so Coleridge’s attempt to understandthe origin of consciousness produces the feeling of a truth which, inWlecke’s words, ‘infinitely recedes from adequate comprehension’.6

Yet far from focusing repeatedly on the same inaccessible or pressible truths, Coleridge emphasizes the necessity of a continualdevelopment and progression of consciousness in order to free himselffrom the limitations of the external world Only through suchproductive activity, he suggests, can we experience the ‘life-ebullientstream’ of creative energy which underlies and shapes all aspects ofour consciousness.7

inex-Rather than being primarily an expression of political or socialconservatism (as some critics suggest), therefore, Coleridge’s idealismserves the emotional imperative of freeing himself from the sense ofimprisonment and even despair which he found was produced by anexclusive focus on material things, or by an absence of mental activityand engagement In case this seem either a selfish or a solipsistic con-cern, however, one should also point out that this aim is consistentlyassociated by Coleridge with a sense of hope, and that this hope isoften focused on the liberation of human beings in general frompractical tyranny, as well as from the limitations of conventionalopinion.8 The irresistible force of Coleridge’s own inquisitive intel-lect undoubtedly made him more sympathetic to those who weresimilarly uncomfortable with the intellectual stasis or subjectionwhich he associated with empiricist or scientific world-views;9 yet inexhorting his readers to envisage higher ideals than material ones he

is, I would argue, less concerned with preserving the economic andpolitical advantages of his class than with a form of emotionalsurvival which cannot be separated from the experience of thesublime.10

For Coleridge as much as for any Romantic, indeed, the feeling ofthe sublime is the feeling of life itself, intuited through the medium

of our own mental activity and striving In his early writings, moreover,this feeling is often closely associated with the expectation of animprovement in society, and especially with the increasing freedomand knowledge celebrated by many eighteenth-century thinkers, andwhich Coleridge himself connects with the ideal of democratic liber-ation from aristocracy and tyranny.11 As his own experience of finan-cial and personal misfortune, as well as of the war with France,continued, however, his aspirations increasingly turned towards thespiritual and religious transcendence which is treated so sceptically

by McGann, yet which—in combination with his continuingpolitical, scientific, and literary interests—makes him both the mostchallenging and the most diverse of British Romantic authors Whilerecognizing the conservative, and even anti-democratic, implica-tions of his later political thought, therefore, we should also recog-nize the unique force and vividness with which he expresses theRomantic quest for higher ideals than those of practical power andmaterial prosperity In a world ever-more focused on precisely thelatter concerns, moreover, Coleridge’s emphasis on the uniquelyhuman values of spiritual calm and identification with the indefinableessence of one’s fellow human beings and of the natural world hasconsiderably more relevance than a historicist emphasis on its class-context might lead one to expect.12 Though Shelley’s version of thesublime rejects Coleridgean metaphysics, indeed, his humanisticemphasis on the importance of recognizing the power of imagination

in the discoveries of science, and preserving its influence in theirapplication, clearly owes much to Coleridge’s theory of imagination,and similarly celebrates the indefinable, creative power underlyingall aspects of perception, thought, and creativity, in opposition tothe negative effects of industrial development.13 Hence we shouldnot be discouraged by Coleridge’s intellectualism, nor the poeticobscurity often surrounding his references to ‘sublime ideas’, fromrecognizing the vigour and unique diversity with which he expressesthe values that chiefly define Romanticism, separating it equallyfrom the empiricist outlook most prominent in eighteenth-centuryauthors, and from the scientific materialism which, in Victorianwriting, increasingly conflicts with and suppresses the Romanticinheritance

This volume, therefore, aims to demonstrate the centrality of theaesthetic of the sublime not only in many of Coleridge’s poems butalso in his prose writings on landscape, literature, the visual arts,psychology, metaphysics, religion, and politics Chapter 1 focuses onthose passages of his early writings—primarily in verse, thoughoccasionally in prose—which most vividly illustrate his earlyenthusiasm for liberty, equality, and the philosophical and religious

‘enlightenment’ of humanity These passages—dating from between

1794 and 1798—combine a celebration of social and political

‘progress’ with expressions of faith in a benevolent deity who rendersthe universe generally progressive, and whose aim of increasinghuman happiness will itself be advanced by an optimistic faith in Hisbenevolence and wisdom Coleridge’s theories in these writings are

at once materialist in their Hartleian vision of the physical ormechanical processes underlying the progressiveness of humanity,and Neoplatonic in their celebration of ascending stages of enlight-enment and spirituality This paradoxical nexus of theories andtraditions, moreover, is itself combined with an almost tangibleexcitement at the prospect of Britain’s beginning to follow the ideals

of French ‘liberty’, and sweeping away the antiquated institutionsand beliefs of earlier ages Though philosophically paradoxical,however, this hybrid vision not only echoes Hartley’s philosophy(whose combination of materialist, Neoplatonic, and Christianelements is well-documented),14 but also—and more substantially—Priestley’s combination of Hartley’s theories with an enthusiasm forphilosophical enlightenment and an emphasis on the self-fulfillingquality of a faith in the intrinsic progressiveness of nature andhumanity.15 Coleridge in these writings, therefore, is perhaps asparadoxically eclectic as in any of his later works, yet also presentshis youthfully-optimistic vision with a degree of vividness andpassion as great as in any of his later writings, and which is perhapsrendered still more intense by its association with so unambiguouslyradical a programme These writings, indeed, often problematize theview of Coleridge as primarily a conservative writer, and highlightthe extent to which his later visions of transcendence are anticipated

in his early celebrations of a ‘progress’ which is not only spiritualand intellectual, but also democratic and egalitarian

Chapter 2 explores those of Coleridge’s landscape-descriptions—mainly dating from between 1800 and 1805—which most closely

reflect the values of the Romantic sublime as defined by Kant and (to

a significant extent) by Burke Their most prominent foci are thelandscapes of the Lake District, of Scotland, and of the Mediterraneanregions which Coleridge visited in 1804–6; and the contrast whichthese locations presented with his early surroundings is almost tangible

in the excitement—and, sometimes, the almost Burkeian ‘terror’—with which he associates them Perhaps the most distinctive feature

of these passages, indeed, is the vividness with which they combine

an emphasis on the grandeur, remoteness, wildness, and savagery ofmountain regions with a degree of individuality in describing theirforms and the emotions they produce which anchors them firmly inthe experience of an observer unusually sensitive to the effects ofoutward forms as well as to the subleties of feeling and logicalargument In his descriptions of Glen Coe as of the Sierra Nevada orthe mountains of Morocco looming in the distance on his journey toMalta, indeed, Coleridge is so intensely visual a writer that McGann’semphasis on his suppression or exclusion of material reality—be itthat of ‘history’, or of the material conditions of life more generally—seems to demand some reassessment.16 The intense physicality ofthese and many other passages of Coleridge’s writing, moreover,highlights the extent to which his spiritual and religious concernsarise as a response to practical circumstances of diverse kinds, includingthe bodily sufferings which his notebooks also record in great detail,and which were among the reasons for his journey to Malta.17 If hisfascination with the sublimity of mountains represents a flight fromsuch misfortunes, however, it also shares the unembarrassed andseemingly spontaneous emotional vividness of his early response tothe work of Schiller, which he described as producing so genuine

a sense of fear that he ‘tremble[d] like an Aspen Leaf’.18 Coleridge’sresponse to the landscapes which his age defined as most sublime,that is, at once exemplifies the characteristic values of Romanticaesthetics, and communicates their menacing or awesome qualitieswith such physical and emotional detail as to make them a compellingaspect of the reader’s own experience As with many of his evocations

of sublime feeling, therefore, Coleridge’s landscape-descriptions bine elements unique to their historical (and literary-historical)context with a force and individuality which raises them well abovethe merely generic Here as elsewhere, indeed, the distinctiveness of hiswriting consists primarily in the directness with which the perceptions,

com-thoughts, and emotions it invokes reflect contemporary theories—and most prominently those of Kant—as to the structure and meaning

of the sublime experience, while at the same time being firmlyanchored in the concrete and the sensory

Chapter 3 explores Coleridge’s writings on the sublime effects ofdiverse forms of literature in verse and prose—including his ownpoetry as well as the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth,Schiller, and others—additionally comparing these with his lessextensive discussions of sublimity in the visual arts As the passagescollected in this chapter demonstrate, the ‘faculty that forms themany into one’, or ‘the power of reducing multitude into unity ofeffect’ (as Coleridge variously describes imagination) is as central

a concept in his analyses of the sublime effects of Shakespeare orMilton as in his discussions of the ways in which the act of percep-tion itself transforms the ‘raw data’ of sensuous impressions intoorganically unified wholes.19 What the sublime effects he discovers

in these authors ultimately depend on, indeed, is precisely theircapacity to achieve a ‘balance or reconciliation’ of ideas with imagesand of passion with logical or poetic form, and thus to direct thereader’s attention away from the ‘fixities and definites’ of empiricalperception, promoting instead that ‘strong working of the mind’which Coleridge sees as underlying any intuition of ultimatetruths.20 As Coleridge himself puts it in a comparison of the beauti-ful and sublime, ‘No object of Sense is sublime in itself; but only asfar as I make it a symbol of some Idea.’ ‘Nothing that has a shape,’

he continues, ‘can be called sublime except by metaphor So true

it is, that those objects, whose shape most recedes from shapeliness

are commonly the exciting occasions’ (SWF, 1: 597) Hence his

repeated emphasis—particularly in discussions of Milton, and otherseventeenth-century authors, though also of his own sometimescomplex prose-style—on the achievement of an organically-evolvingcombination of ideas within each sentence or paragraph, which

at once evokes the author’s depth of thought or understanding, andinvolves the reader in striving to grasp its elusive meaning.21 Notonly the sublime ideas expressed by the author, indeed, but also theauthor himself quite frequently becomes the focus of Coleridge’sdiscussions of sublimity in literature—most prominently in thecase of Shakespeare, whom he even described as ‘deriving hisgenius immediately from heaven—independent of earthly or natural

influence’.22 In the case of Wordsworth, however, Coleridge particularlypraises those passages of his poems which most vividly evoke theexpansion of consciousness that Wordsworth (like Coleridge himself)associates with an intuition of fundamental truths Despite hisdoubts over the appropriateness of describing a six-year-old child as

a ‘philosopher’, indeed, the ‘Intimations’ ode is prominent amongthe poems which Coleridge uses to illustrate the imaginative powerexpressed in Wordsworth’s finest work, while the ‘high’ or ‘elevated’style of ‘Tintern Abbey’ and other poems is described as revealing

‘the gift of IMAGINATION in the highest and strictest sense of theword’, and as making him the ‘nearest of all modern writers to

Shakespear [sic] and Milton’.23 In contrast, Coleridge’s earlyresponse to the work of Schiller reveals considerable enthusiasm forthe more sophisticated German examples of Gothic ‘terror’—aresponse which differs sharply from his more negative views of

Gothic fiction in English, such as Lewis’s The Monk or Radcliffe’s The

Italian.24 In an early letter to Southey, indeed, Coleridge even

sug-gests that Schiller’s Die Räuber is more sublime than any of the

works of Milton,25 though his taste for the sublimity of ‘terror’seems increasingly to have been replaced by more philosophical andreligious forms of transcendence as his career continued

An emphasis on organic unity again informs Coleridge’s lessnumerous discussions of the visual arts—for example in his descrip-

tion of Raphael’s Galatea as achieving ‘the balance, the perfect

reconciliation [of] the two conflicting principles of the FREE LIFE,

and the confining FORM’, in which the latter is ‘fused and almost volatilized by the interpenetration and electrical flashes of the former’ (SWF, 1: 374) As this passage shows, Coleridge’s principle of

‘coadunation’ or ‘reducing multitude into unity’ not only connectshis literary criticism with his discussions of the visual arts, but alsohighlights the close connections between his critical and metaphys-ical opinions: the ‘life’ that informs Raphael’s painting, that is, ‘inter-penetrates’ its ‘confining forms’ in a way closely resembling the

effects of that ‘life’ which, according to Coleridge’s Theory of Life,

‘discloses itself from within as a principle of unity in the many’ (SWF,

1: 510) Yet we should also note his remark on the relatively ‘narrowlimit of painting, as compared with the boundless power of poetry’

‘Painting’, he continued, ‘cannot go beyond a certain point’,whereas ‘poetry rejects all control, all confinement’, ideally achieving

‘the substitution of a grand feeling of the unimaginable for a mereimage’.26

Chapter 4 explores the role of the sublime in Coleridge’s logical theories, and especially his increasing opposition to the materi-alist views of mental functioning proposed by eighteenth-centuryphilosophers such as Locke and Hartley As I have shown elsewhere,even Coleridge’s earliest references to Hartley place far more emphasis

psycho-on the increasingly spiritual forms of cpsycho-onsciousness he describes asresulting from the unconscious association of ideas, than on thematerialist theories which he uses to account for this process.27 Ashis thought and reading developed, however, Coleridge increasinglybecame the most vigorous British opponent of those systems whichsought to explain our ideas as the products of unconscious reactions

to external forces, rather than as elements in a conscious reflectiveprocess involving an attempt to give logical expression to intuitiveconvictions In addition to stressing individual freedom—not only inthe process of thinking, but also in the moral choices which empiricismtended to problematize—Coleridge suggests that every act of thoughtinvolves an attempt to articulate intuitions which always resist full

or adequate expression Hence not only the individual will, but alsothe convictions which we strive to express in the process of thinking

or writing, acquire a sublime quality which Coleridge contrasts withHartley’s emphasis on the purely physical origin of ideas, stressingwhat he sees as empiricists’ failure to question the spontaneousappearances of perception, or indeed to explain how consciousnesscould arise out of matter These two central foci of his psychology—individual freedom, and the intuition of a truth exceeding the limi-tations of the concrete or perceptible—are combined with particularvividness in his evocations of the ‘stream’, or flowing, of life itself—the indefinable creative process underlying and continually manifested

in our perceptions and interpretations of the world.28 As Hazlittpointed out, indeed, despite his emphasis on the individual will,Coleridge cannot easily be convicted of the ‘egotism’ often associ-ated with Romanticism in general, and with his own writings inparticular.29 Every individual, he argues, chooses whether to accept

a ‘lower’ and more imitative existence resembling the automatismdescribed by Hartley, or whether to engage in critical reflection whichraises us to a higher level of being, and ultimately allows us a directintuition of the truths of religious faith.30 In making these choices,

therefore, we also choose whether to remain isolated from each other

as a fragmented mass of conflicting selves, or whether to achieve

a fuller recognition of our ultimate identity as parts of an infiniteunity originating in God.31 Hence Coleridge’s psychological theories,

as much as his writings on the aesthetics of landscape or of literature,depend on the idea of an infinite shaping power which is beyondcomprehension or definition, yet is most fully and productivelymanifested in our efforts to comprehend it It is, indeed, preciselythis Neoplatonic vision of a universal shaping force that underlies

his hierarchical theory of imagination in Biographia Literaria, as well

as his broader emphasis on the importance of fulfilling our potentialfor far greater degrees of spiritual insight and creative achievementthan those envisaged by empiricists.32 This chapter, therefore, treatsthe psychological and metaphysical theories of Coleridge’s middleperiod in combination, illustrating the ways in which his concepts ofthe mind as well as of the deity manifest this key preoccupation withseeking to express the shaping force which underlies all humanthought, as well as the physical world of nature

The passages which most vividly express this fascination with theindefinableness of ‘life’ or ‘spirit’ are arranged in a number of sectionsaccording to the context in which they occur The first of these sectionsillustrates Coleridge’s preoccupation with the gradual ‘ascent’, orevolution, of both nature and humanity towards higher levels ofinsight and virtue; the second illustrates his persistent interest in thedistinction or opposition between surface appearances and the spiritualforces underlying them; the third illustrates the recurrent emphasis—especially in the writings of his middle and later periods—on theimportance of transcending the mundane ‘understanding’ throughcontemplating ideas of Reason (though the discussions of this topicwhose significance is primarily theological are included in the lastchapter); the fourth section groups those passages which evoke hisfascination with the view of society as intrinsically hierarchical, and

as naturally governed by those of greatest insight or genius; the fifthhighlights his emphasis on the sublimity of love and its idealtranscendence both of self and of a physicality detached from spirit-ual values; and the last section groups a number of passages explor-ing the psychology of the experience of the sublime, in terms of itsemotional value as well as the psychological mechanisms throughwhich it arises

As the passages grouped in Chapter 5 demonstrate, however,Coleridge’s metaphysical opinions underwent several major changesafter his discovery of Kant and Schelling Most importantly, his writingsfrom around 1818 onwards increasingly celebrate a religious faithwhich, rather than arising from the ‘restlessly forward driving dynamic’

of German idealism in the form of an intuition of sublimely prehensible truths, consists of a circling series of reflections on therelationship between God, the human mind, and the physical world,

incom-principally in terms of his all-inclusive concept of the logos or ‘divine

Word’.33 This shift in Coleridge’s patterns of thought, as well as inhis central concepts, is paralleled by a change in the variety of feelingwhich his works express, and chiefly by a replacement of the pleas-ures of ‘scent, patience, discrimination, and free Activity’ involved inthe dialectical pursuit of truth with the ‘Joy, Gaudium, [or] Peace

of God which passeth all understanding’ which he associated withthe tranquil after-effects of intellectual exertion.34 At the same time,however, Coleridge consistently emphasizes the ultimate unity ofhuman and divine—whether through the speculative metaphors ofthe Conversation Poems, or through his enduring interest in theconcept of a ‘Reason’ through which we can intuit that unity of selfand other which is only perfectly achieved in the ‘self-comprehendingBeing’ of God.35 Whereas Kant reserves judgement on the existence(or otherwise) of a reality corresponding to the metaphysical ideasinvolved in the sublime experience, moreover, Coleridge’s evoca-tions of religious conviction—and especially of the elevation whichresults from contemplating an infinite and divine power that alwaysresists full comprehension—show no such uncertainty.36 The pleasure(or ‘happiness’) which he associates with intellectual inquiry, indeed,

is often that of religious faith—whether it be the ‘intuitive beholding

of truth in its eternal and immutable source’ described by St Paul, orthe obscurer approaches to such delight involved in finding ‘the end

in the means’ of intellectual inquiry—or in other words in the activity

of thinking rather than the elusive (because sublime) truths which

he claimed it should pursue.37 Hence Coleridge’s writings on thesublimity of religious truth provide an appropriate context in which

to survey the varieties of sublime feeling which he associated withintellectual inquiry and religious conviction—from the ‘Gladness ofintellectual Activity’ to a sense of religious enlightenment resemblingthe ‘perfection and final bliss of the glorified spirit’.38 More than those

of any other British Romantic, indeed, his writings on diverse topicsare shaped by a vision of progress towards a confrontation with theincomprehensible essence of being, thus giving the fullest impres-sion in English of the diverse contexts and significances of theRomantic sublime

1

‘These soul-ennobling views’: 1

Enlightenment and Sublimity

in Coleridge’s Early Writings

The passages—mainly in verse—collected in this chapter all datefrom the period between 1789, when Coleridge was still a pupil atChrist’s Hospital, to 1798, when he had started to renounce his earlierrevolutionary and democratic zeal in favour of what McFarland calls

‘a pure transcendence divorced from political situation’.2 Betweenthese dates, however, Coleridge’s writing is often characterized by

a youthful enthusiasm for political and social change—as well as forthe philosophical and religious ‘enlightenment’ of his fellow-men of allclasses—that remains impressive in its vigour, intensity, and passion.The Coleridge represented in these passages, indeed, is far from beingthe deluded adherent of radical principles which their author laterrepresented himself as having once been,3 being characterized rather

by an idealism which has much in common with his later reflections

on the ‘ascent’ of humanity to higher states of being through sophical and religious insight, and man’s gradual liberation of him-self from the ‘passivity’ of mere conformance to the impressions ofthe senses or the received opinions and values of his age The earlyColeridge’s vision of revolutionary change, that is, not only combinessocial and political with religious and intellectual aims, but is alsocharacterized by an enthusiastic vision of spiritual ascent or upwardprogression which links his interest in the ‘Enlightenment’ values oflate-eighteenth-century authors such as Priestley with the Romantic-idealist theories he later derived from Schelling.4 Coleridge’s rejection

philo-of aristocracy and all forms philo-of tyranny, moreover, is repeatedly linked

in these passages to a vision of the expansion both of scientificknowledge and of religious or spiritual insight which substantially

distinguishes his values from the scientific anti-clericalism whichformed so important a part of the French Enlightenment and of therevolution and its aftermath.5 In poems such as ‘Religious Musings’(1796), indeed, scientific empiricism is combined with an almostNeoplatonic vision of broadening insight and ascent towards unionwith the deity through the basically Hartleian theory that the effect

of the association of ideas is naturally and necessarily to intensifyour consciousness of God until the self is literally indistinguishablefrom its divine origin;6 yet Coleridge distinctively combines this hybridvision with a zeal for equality and democracy which represents theseideals as an intrinsic part of Christian (rather than anti-clerical)teachings Despite the pressure Coleridge later felt to renounce hisearlier ‘Jacobinical’ leanings,7 therefore, much of the enthusiasm for

‘freedom’ expressed in these passages is also evident in his later ist thought and in his vision of human beings’ gradual ascent from apreoccupation with the physical world to an insight into their ownreflective processes and their dependence on an ultimately religiousfaith in the continuity of consciousness and the ‘inspiration’ of thehuman mind by the divine Reason.8 Coleridge’s focus in these earlywritings, that is, is by no means only on political freedom and socialequality, but also on liberating the mind from its ignorance both ofscientific truths and of the power of God working in all humanbeings to promote forms of insight which bring them closer to thedeity Himself Hence, in comparing these early writings with hislater idealist and theological ones—in which the zeal for equality is,though not wholly absent, at least less prominent—we should notconfine our interpretation to the often-invoked opposition between

ideal-‘materialist’ and ‘idealist’ visions, but should rather recognize theways in which both of these at different times formed the primaryvehicle for Coleridge’s expression of his vision of humanity’s sublimeascent to ever-greater degrees of freedom, knowledge, and happiness.The last passage in this chapter—from ‘France: An Ode’ (1798)—however, highlights the incipient doubts as to the attainableness

of these ideals—at least in the practical, political sense evoked

in most of these selections—which Coleridge felt following theincreasingly violent and tyrannical aftermath of the French revolu-tion The transition evoked in this poem—from a zeal for politicalliberty to an identification of untrammelled ‘nature’ as the suresthome of ‘freedom’—indeed, again demonstrates the extent and nature

of the continuity between the early, ‘radical’ Coleridge and the lateridealist and religious thinker.

‘Destruction of the Bastile’ (1789?)9

I

HEARD’ST thou yon universal cry,

And dost thou linger still on Gallia’s shore?

Go, Tyranny! beneath some barbarous sky

Thy terrors lost and ruin’d power deplore!

What tho’ through many a groaning age

Was felt thy keen suspicious rage,

Yet Freedom rous’d by fierce Disdain

Has wildly broke thy triple chain,

And like the storm which Earth’s deep entrails hide,

At length has burst its way and spread the ruins wide

* * * * * * *IV

In sighs their sickly breath was spent; each gleam

Of Hope had ceas’d the long long day to cheer;

Or if delusive, in some flitting dream,

It gave them to their friends and children dear—

Awaked by lordly Insult’s sound

To all the doubled horrors round,

Oft shrunk they from Oppression’s band

While Anguish rais’d the desperate hand

For silent death; or lost the mind’s controll,

Thro’ every burning vein would tides of Frenzy roll

VBut cease, ye pitying bosoms, cease to bleed!

Such scenes no more demand the tear humane;

I see, I see! glad Liberty succeed

With every patriot virtue in her train!

And mark yon peasant’s raptur’d eyes;

Secure he views his harvests rise;

No fetter vile the mind shall know,

And Eloquence shall fearless glow

Yes! Liberty the soul of Life shall reign,

Shall throb in every pulse, shall flow thro’ every vein!

VI Shall France alone a Despot spurn?

Shall she alone, O Freedom, boast thy care?

Lo, round thy standard Belgia’s heroes burn,

Tho’ Power’s blood-stain’d streamers fire the air,

And wider yet thy influence spread,

Nor e’er recline thy weary head,

Till every land from pole to pole

Shall boast one independent soul!

And still, as erst, let favour’d Britain be

First ever of the first and freest of the free!

(CPW, 1: 10–11)

‘Life’ (1789)10

As late I journey’d o’er the extensive plain

Where native Otter sports his scanty stream,

Musing in torpid woe a Sister’s pain,

The glorious prospect woke me from the dream

At every step it widen’d to my sight—

Wood, Meadow, verdant Hill, and dreary Steep,

Following in quick succession of delight,—

Till all—at once—did my eye ravish’d sweep!

May this (I cried) my course through Life portray!

New scenes of Wisdom may each step display,

And Knowledge open as my days advance!

Till what time Death shall pour the undarken’d ray,

My eye shall dart thro’ infinite expanse,

And thought suspended lie in Rapture’s blissful trance

(CPW, 1: 11–12)

‘Pantisocracy’ (1794)11

No more my visionary soul shall dwell

On joys that were; no more endure to weigh

The shame and anguish of the evil day,

Wisely forgetful! O’er the ocean swell

Sublime of Hope, I seek the cottag’d dell

Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray,

And dancing to the moonlight roundelay,

The wizard Passions weave an holy spell

Eyes that have ach’d with Sorrow! Ye shall weep

Tears of doubt-mingled joy, like theirs who start

From Precipices of distemper’d sleep,

On which the fierce-eyed Fiends their revels keep,

And see the rising Sun, and feel it dart

New rays of pleasance trembling to the heart

(CPW, 1: 68–9)

From ‘Sonnets on Eminent Characters’ (1794–95)

‘To the Honourable Mr Erskine’12

WHEN British Freedom for an happier land

Spread her broad wings, that flutter’d with affright,

ERSKINE! thy voice she heard, and paus’d her flight Sublime of hope, for dreadless thou didst stand

(Thy censer glowing with the hallow’d flame)

A hireless Priest before the insulted shrine,

And at her altar pour the stream divine

Of unmatch’d eloquence Therefore thy name

Her sons shall venerate, and cheer thy breast

With blessings heaven-ward breath’d And when the doom

Of Nature bids thee die, beyond the tomb

Thy light shall shine: as sunk beneath the West

Though the great Summer Sun eludes our gaze,

Still burns wide Heaven with his distended blaze

(CPW, 1: 79–80)

‘La Fayette’13

As when far off the warbled strains are heard

That soar on Morning’s wing the vales among;

Within his cage the imprison’d Matin Bird

Swells the full chorus with a generous song:

He bathes no pinion in the dewy light,

No Father’s joy, no Lover’s bliss he shares

Yet still the rising radiance cheers his sight—

His fellows’ Freedom soothes the Captive’s cares!

Thou, FAYETTE! who didst wake with startling voice

Life’s better Sun from that long wintry night,

Thus in thy Country’s triumphs shalt rejoice

And mock with raptures high the Dungeon’s might:

For lo! the Morning struggles into Day,

And Slavery’s spectres shriek and vanish from the ray!

(CPW, 1: 82)

‘Koskiusko’14

OWHAT a loud and fearful shriek was there,

As though a thousand souls one death-groan pour’d!

Ah me! they saw beneath a Hireling’s sword

Their KOSKIUSKO fall! Through the swart air

(As pauses the tir’d Cossac’s barbarous yell

Of Triumph) on the chill and midnight gale

Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell

The dirge of murder’d Hope! while Freedom pale

Bends in such anguish o’er her destin’d bier,

As if from eldest time some Spirit meek

Had gather’d in a mystic urn each tear

That ever on a Patriot’s furrow’d cheek

Fit channel found; and she had drain’d the bowl

In the mere wilfulness, and sick despair of soul!

(CPW, 1: 82–3)

From ‘Political Lecture at Bristol, 1795’15

There is a third class among the friends of freedom, who possess notthe wavering character of the first description, nor the ferocity lastdelineated They pursue the interests of freedom steadily, but withnarrow and self-centering views: they anticipate with exultation theabolition of privileged orders, and of acts that persecute by exclusionfrom the rights of citizenship Whatever is above them they are mostwilling to drag down; but every proposed alteration that wouldelevate their poorer brethren, they rank among the dreams of vision-aries; as if there were anything in the superiority of lord to gentle-man so mortifying in the barrier, so fatal to happiness in theconsequences, as the more real distinction of master and servant, ofrich man and of poor Wherein am I made worse by my ennobledneighbor? Do the childish titles of aristocracy detract from mydomestic comforts, or prevent my intellectual acquisitions? But thoseinstitutions of society which should condemn me to the necessity oftwelve hours’ daily toil, would make my soul a slave, and sink therational being in the mere animal It is a mockery of our fellow-creatures’ wrongs to call them equal in rights, when by the bittercompulsion of their wants we make them inferior to us in all thatcan soften the heart, or dignify the understanding Let us not saythat this is the work of time—that it is impracticable at present,unless we each in our individual capacities do strenuously and per-severingly endeavor to diffuse among our domestics those comfortsand that illumination which far beyond all political ordinances arethe true equalizers of men

We turn with pleasure to the contemplation of that small but ous band, whom we may truly distinguish by the name of thinkingand disinterested patriots These are the men who have encouragedthe sympathetic passions till they have become irresistible habits,and made their duty a necessary part of their self-interest, by thelong-continued cultivation of that moral taste which derives ourmost exquisite pleasures from the contemplation of possible perfec-tion, and proportionate pain from the perception of existing depravity.Accustomed to regard all the affairs of man as a process, they neverhurry and they never pause Theirs is not that twilight of politicalknowledge which gives us just light enough to place one foot beforethe other: as they advance the scene still opens upon them, and they

glori-press right onward with a vast and various landscape of existencearound them Calmness and energy mark all their actions Convincedthat vice originates not in the man, but in the surrounding circum-stances; not in the heart, but in the understanding; the Christianpatriot is hopeless concerning no one;—to correct a vice or generate

a virtuous conduct, he pollutes not his hands with the scourge ofcoercion; but by endeavoring to alter circumstances would remove,

or by strengthening the intellect disarm, the temptation The unhappychildren of vice and folly, whose tempers are adverse to their ownhappiness as well as to the happiness of others, will at times awaken

a natural pang; but he looks forward with gladdened heart to thatglorious period when justice shall have established the universalfraternity of love These soul-ennobling views bestow the virtueswhich they anticipate He whose mind is habitually impressed withthem soars above the present state of humanity, and may be justlysaid to dwell in the presence of the Most High

(Shedd, 2: 301–3)

From ‘Religious Musings’ (1794–96)16

THIS is the time, when most divine to hear,

The voice of Adoration rouses me,

As with a Cherub’s trump: and high upborne,

Yea, mingling with the Choir, I seem to view

The vision of the heavenly multitude,

Who hymned the song of Peace o’er Bethlehem’s fields! Yet thou more bright than all the Angel-blaze,

That harbingered thy birth, Thou Man of Woes!

Despiséd Galilaean! For the Great

Invisible (by symbols only seen)

With a peculiar and surpassing light

Shines from the visage of the oppressed good man,

When heedless of himself the scourgéd saint

Mourns for the oppressor Fair the vernal mead,

Fair the high grove, the sea, the sun, the stars;

True impress each of their creating Sire!

Yet nor high grove, nor many-colour’d mead,

Nor the green ocean with his thousand isles,

Nor the starred azure, nor the sovran sun,

E’er with such majesty of portraiture

Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate,

As thou, meek Saviour! at the fearful hour

When thy insulted anguish winged the prayer

Harped by Archangels, when they sing of mercy!

Which when the Almighty heard from forth his throne Diviner light filled Heaven with ecstasy!

Heaven’s hymnings paused: and Hell her yawning mouth Closed a brief moment

Lovely was the death

Of Him whose life was Love! Holy with power

He on the thought-benighted Sceptic beamed

Manifest Godhead, melting into day

What floating mists of dark idolatry

Broke and misshaped the omnipresent Sire:

And first by Fear uncharmed the drowséd Soul

Till of its nobler nature it ’gan feel

Dim recollections; and thence soared to Hope,

Strong to believe whate’er of mystic good

The Eternal dooms for His immortal sons

From Hope and firmer Faith to perfect Love

Attracted and absorbed: and centered there

God only to behold, and know, and feel,

Till by exclusive consciousness of God

All self-annihilated it shall make

God its Identity: God all in all!

We and our Father one!

And blest are they, Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven,

Their strong eye darting through the deeds of men,

Adore with steadfast unpresuming gaze

Him Nature’s essence, mind, and energy!

And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend

Treading beneath their feet all visible things

As steps, that upward to their Father’s throne

Lead gradual—else nor glorified nor loved

They nor contempt embosom nor revenge:

For they dare know of what may seem deform

The Supreme Fair sole operant: in whose sight

All things are pure, his strong controlling love

Alike from all educing perfect good

Their’s too celestial courage, inly armed—

Dwarfing Earth’s giant brood, what time they muse

On their great Father, great beyond compare!

And marching onwards view high o’er their heads His waving banners of Omnipotence

Who the Creator love, created Might

Dread not: within their tents no Terrors walk

For they are holy things before the Lord

Aye unprofaned, though Earth should league with Hell; God’s altar grasping with an eager hand

Fear, the wild-visag’d, pale, eye-starting wretch,

Sure-refug’d hears his hot pursuing fiends

Yell at vain distance Soon refresh’d from Heaven

He calms the throb and tempest of his heart

His countenance settles; a soft solemn bliss

Swims in his eye—his swimming eye uprais’d:

And Faith’s whole armour glitters on his limbs!

And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe,

A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds

All things of terrible seeming: yea, unmoved

Views e’en the immitigable ministers

That shower down vengeance on these latter days For kindling with intenser Deity

From the celestial Mercy-seat they come,

And at the renovating wells of Love

Have fill’d their vials with salutary wrath,

To sickly Nature more medicinal

Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours Into the lone despoiléd traveller’s wounds!

Thus from the Elect, regenerate through faith,

Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty cares

Drink up the spirit, and the dim regards

Self-centre Lo they vanish! or acquire

New names, new features—by supernal grace

Enrobed with Light, and naturalised in Heaven

As when a shepherd on a vernal morn

Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow foot, Darkling he fixes on the immediate road

His downward eye: all else of fairest kind

Hid or deformed But lo! the bursting Sun!

Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam

Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes

Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree;

On every leaf, on every blade it hangs!

Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays,

And wide around the landscape streams with glory!

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,

Omnific His most holy name is Love

Truth of subliming import! with the which

Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,

He from his small particular orbit flies

With blest outstarting! From himself he flies,

Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze

Views all creation; and he loves it all,

And blesses it, and calls it very good!

This is indeed to dwell with the Most High!

Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim

Can press no nearer to the Almighty’s throne

But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts

Unfeeling of our universal Sire,

And that in His vast family no Cain

Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow

Victorious Murder a blind Suicide)

Haply for this some younger Angel now

Looks down on Human Nature: and, behold!

A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad

Embattling Interests on each other rush

With unhelmed rage!

’Tis the sublime of man, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves

Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!

This fraternises man, this constitutes