With face averted and unsteady eyes,

Her truant playmate's faded robe puts on;
And, inly shrinking from her own disguise,
Enacts the faery boy that's lost and gone.

O worse than all! O pang all pangs above
Is Kindness counterfeiting absent Love!

But Wordsworth and Coleridge, each gaining and each losing something, come much nearer to one another in their later poetry that of Wordsworth takes more of the sky, that of Coleridge more of the earth; the former drops a good deal of its excessive realism (to use the word in a somewhat peculiar, but sufficiently intelligible sense), the latter something of its over-idealism. Among those of Coleridge's poems, however, to which an early date is fixed, there are a few, the execution of which is so perfect, that we should be inclined to think they had undergone much revision before they were published, and that, in part at least, they are to be properly considered as really the produce of his later years. His Christabel, for instance, is stated to have been written, the First Part in 1797, the Second Part in 1800; but we cannot help suspecting that the following lines, from what is called the Conclusion to Part First, may have been an addition made not very long before the first publication of the poem in 1816:

And see! the lady Christabel

Gathers herself from out her trance;
Her limbs relax, her countenance

Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids
Close o'er her eyes; and tears she sheds-
Large tears that leave the lashes bright!
And oft the while she seems to smile

As infants at a sudden light!
Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,
Like a youthful hermitess,

Beauteous in a wilderness,

Who, praying always, prays in sleep.

And, if she move unquietly,
Perchance, 'tis but the blood so free,
Comes back and tingles in her feet.
No doubt, she hath a vision sweet.
What if her guardian spirit 'twere?
What if she knew her mother near?
But this she knows, in joys and woes,
That saints will aid if men will call:
For the blue sky bends over all!

The filmy delicacy of this writing is exquisite; every word is light and music. Equally beautiful, and in the same style, is the following little fragment, being the introductory stanzas of a poem on the Wanderings of Cain, in which we are led to understand some progress had been made at an early date, although this stanza, all of the poem that has been preserved, was not published till towards the close of the author's life :Encinctured with a twine of leaves,

That leafy twine his only dress,
A lovely boy was plucking fruits,
By moonlight, in a wilderness.

The moon was bright, the air was free,
And fruits and flowers together grew
On many a shrub and many a tree :
And all put on a gentle hue,
Hanging in the shadowy air
Like a picture rich and rare.
It was a climate where, they say,
The night is more beloved than day.
But who that beauteous boy beguiled,
That beauteous boy to linger here?
Alone, by night, a little child,

In place so silent and so wild

Has he no friend, no loving mother near?

In most of Coleridge's latest poetry, however, along with this perfection of execution, in which he was unmatched, we have more body and warmth-more of the inspiration of the heart mingling with that of the fancy. But, before quoting the specimens we intend to give of that, we would introduce a little piece, which seems to us eminently tender and beautiful, although less remarkable for high finish; it is entitled A Day Dream:

My eyes make pictures when they are shut :

I see a fountain, large and fair,

A willow and a ruined hut,

And thee, and me, and Mary there.

O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow!

Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow!

A wild-rose roofs the ruined shed,
And that and summer well agree:
And lo! where Mary leans her head,

Two dear names carved upon the tree!

And Mary's tears, they are not tears of sorrow:
Our sister and our friend will both be here to-morrow.

:

"Twas day, but now few, large, and bright
The stars are round the crescent moon!
And now it is a dark warm night,

The balmiest of the month of June!

A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting,
Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain.

O ever-ever be thou blest!

For dearly, Asra, love I thee!

This brooding warmth across my breast,
This depth of tranquil bliss-ah me!

Fount, tree, and shed are gone, I know not whither,
But in one quiet room we three are still together.

The shadows dance upon the wall,

By the still dancing fire-flames made;
And now they slumber, moveless all!

And now they melt to one deep shade!

But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee:
I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee!

Thine eye-lash on my cheek doth play—

'Tis Mary's hand upon my brow!

But let me check this tender lay,

Which none may hear but she and thou!

Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming,

Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women!

We will now present a few of those gems without a flaw which were the latest produce of Coleridge's genius. The following lines are entitled Work without Hope, and are stated to have been composed 21st February, 1827

All nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing-

And winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And hope without an object cannot live.

To about the same date belongs the following, entitled Youth and Age:

Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-
Both were mine! Life went a maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,

When I was young!
When I was young?—Ah, woeful when!
Ah! for the change 'twixt now and then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er airy cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along :-
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,

That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather When youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O! the joys that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!

Ere I was old?-Ah, woeful ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet
"Tis known that thou and I were one';
I'll think it but a fond conceit
It cannot be, that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled :-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve,
With oft and tedious taking leave;

Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist,
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,

And tells the jest without the smile.

The following was written, we believe, a year or two later. It winds up a prose dialogue between two girls and their elderly male friend the Poet, or Improvisatore, as he is more familiarly styled, who, after a most eloquent description of that rare mutual love, the possession of which he declares would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue, to the remark, "Surely, he who has described it so well must have possessed it?" replies, "If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment!" and then, after a pause, breaks out into verse thus::

Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat,

He had, or fancied that he had;

Say, 'twas but in his own conceit

The fancy made him glad!

Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish,

The boon prefigured in his earliest wish,

The fair fulfilment of his poesy,

When his young heart first yearned for sympathy!

But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain

Unnourished wane;

Faith asks her daily bread,

And fancy must be fed.

Now so it chanced-from wet or dry,

It boots not how-I know not why

She missed her wonted food; and quickly
Poor fancy staggered and grew sickly.
Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay,
His faith was fixed, his heart all ebb and flow;
Or like a bark, in some half-sheltered bay,
Above its anchor driving to and fro.

That boon, which but to have possest
In a belief gave life a zest―
Uncertain both what it had been,

And if by error lost, or luck;

And what it was;-an evergreen

Which some insidious blight had struck,

Or annual flower, which, past its blow,
No vernal spell shall e'er revive!
Uncertain, and afraid to know,

Doubts tossed him to and fro :