CHRISTMAS-TIME. HEAP on more wood! the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, They gorged upon the half-dressed steer; As best might to the mind recall And well our Christian sires of old On Christmas eve the bells were rung; Then opened wide the baron's hall The fire, with well-dried logs supplied, Went roaring up the chimney wide; The huge hall-table's oaken face, Crested with bays and rosemary. ale; 'T was Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the year. And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve! She leaned against the arméd man, The statue of the arméd knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. I played a soft and doleful air, She listened with a flitting blush, I told her of the Knight that wore I told her how he pined: and ah! She listened with a flitting blush, But when I told the cruel scorn SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. And that he crossed the mountain-woods, [1772-1834.] GENEVIEVE. ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I Beside the ruined tower. The moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve; Nor rested day nor night; That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, There came and looked him in the face This miserable Knight! And that unknowing what he did, 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 That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity! 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 fled to me and wept. She half enclosed me with her arms, 'T was partly love, and partly fear, The swelling of her heart. I calmed her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve, My bright and beauteous Bride. HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause 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 vale! O, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink, Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald,-wake, O, wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icycaverns called you forth, | Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen and have rest? Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade 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 cock; Tu-whit! tu-whoo! 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, |