Theme hard as high!
Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin birth),
Of tides obedient to external force,
is And currents self-determined, as might seem, Or by some inner power; of moments awful,0 awe- inspiring
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received
The light reflected, as a light bestowed?
20 Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean3 murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
25 Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way!
Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense
Distending wide, and man beloved as man,
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating
30 Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst
Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
Is visible, or shadow on the main.
For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,
Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,
35 Amid a mighty nation jubilant,
When from the general heart of human kind
Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity!
Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure
1. This was the poem (later called The Prelude), 2. Wordsworth had described the effect on his addressed to Coleridge, that Wordsworth had com-mind of the animating breeze ('vital breathings')
pleted in 1805. After Coleridge returned from in The Prelude 1.1^14. 'Thoughts . . . words' ech-
Malta, very low in health and spirits, Wordsworth oes the last line of Wordsworth's 'Intimations'
read the poem aloud to him during the evenings of ode. Coleridge goes on to summarize the major
almost two weeks. Coleridge wrote most of the themes and events of The Prelude.
present response immediately after the reading was 3. Sweet. Hybla, in ancient Sicily, was famous for
completed, on January 7, 1807. its honey.
.
472 / SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
40 From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self,
With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
Far on?herself a glory to behold,
The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
45 Action and joy!?An Orphic song4 indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted!
O great Bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With steadfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
