The Poetical Works of Robert Southey, etc

Front matter

This Book is sent with the best wishes of the people of Richmond, Surrey. Loud ■.-, s o rr rn e v's POETE C ft.X SR c R K S, EM OWE . 0 i, i! IE. 3s §£ .T KESWICK. I, OIBOI, THE POETICAL WORKS OP EOBEET SOUTHEY COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME NEW EDITION LONDON LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. LONDON : PRINTED BY SrOTTISWOOPE AND CO., NEW-STREET BQrARB ASD PARLIAMENT 8TBEKT PREFACES TO THE COLLECTED EDITION OF TEN VOLUMES, PUBLISHED IN 1837, 1838.

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long after it was written ; inasmuch as it must be impossible to recall the precise train of thought in which any passage was conceived, and the considerations upon which not the single verse alone but the whole sentence, or paragraph, had been constructed : but with regard to more important changes, there could be no danger of introducing any discrepance in style. With juvenile pieces the case is diffe rent. From these the faults of diction have been weeded wherever it could be done with out more trouble than the composition originally cost, and than the piece it. elf was worth. But inherent faults of conception and structure are incurable ; and it would have been mere waste of time to recompose what it was impossible otherwise to amend. TO THE FIRST VOLUME At the ago of sixty-three I have undertaken to collect and edite my Poetical Works, with the last corrections that I can expect to bestow upon them.

They have obtained a reputation equal to my wishes ; and I have this ground for hoping it may not be deemed hereafter more than commensurate with their deserts, that it has been gained without ever accommoda ting myself to the taste or fashion of the times. Thus to collect and revise them is a duty which I owe to that part of the Public by whom they have been auspiciously received, and to those who will take a lively concern in my good name when I shall have departed. If these poems had been now for the first time to be made public, there are some among them which, instead of being committed to the press, would have been consigned to (he flames ; not for any disgrace which could be reflected upon me by the crude compositions of my youth, nor for any harm which they coidd possibly do the reader, but merely that they might not cumber the collection.

But " nescit vox missa reverti." Pirated editions would hold out as a recommendation, that they con tained what I had chosen to suppress, and thus it becomes prudent, and therefore proper, that such pieces should be retained. The arrangement was the first thing to be considered. In this the order wherein the re spective poems were written has been observed, so far as was compatible with a convenient classification. Such order is useful to those who read critically, and desire to trace the progress of an author's mind in his writings ; and by affixing dates to the minor pieces, under whatever head they are disposed, the object is sufficiently attained. Next came the question of correction. There was no difficulty with those poems which were composed aster the author had acquired his art (so far as he has acquired it), and after his opinions were matured.

It was only necessary to bear in mind the risk there must ever be of injuring a poem by verbal alterations made It has ever been a rule with me when I have imitated a passage, or borrowed an expression, to acknowledge the specific obligation. Upon the present occasion it behoves me to state the more general and therefore more important __.-

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. obligations which I am conscious of owing either to my predecessors, or my contemporaries. My obligation to Dr. Sayers is of a different kind. Every one who has an ear for metre and a heart for poetry, must have felt how perfectly the metre of Collins's " Ode to Eve ning" is in accordance with the imagery and the feeling. None of the experiments which were made of other unrhymed stanzas proved successful. They were either in strongly marked and well-known measures which unavoidably led the reader to expect rhyme, and consequently baulked him when he looked for it ; or they were in stanzas as cum brous as they were ill constructed. Dr. Sayers went upon a different principle, and succeeded admirably. I read his " Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology " when they were first published, and convinced myself when I had acquired some skill in versification, that the kind of verse in which his choruses were com posed was not less applicable to narration than to lyrical poetry.

Soon after I had begun the Arabian romance, for which this measure seemed the most appropriate vehicle, "Gebir" fell into my hands, and my verse was greatly im proved by it, both in vividness and strength. Several years elapsed before I knew that Walter Landor was the author, and more before I had the good fortune to meet the per son to whom I felt myself thus beholden. The days which I have passed with him in the Vale of Ewias, at Como, and lastly in the neighbourhood of Bristol, are some of those which have left with me " a joy for memory." My first attempts in verse were much too early to be imitative, but I was fortunate enough to find my way, when very young, into the right path. I read the " Jerusalem Deli vered" and the " Orlando Furioso" again and again, in Hoole's translations : it was for the sake of their stories that I perused and re-per used these poems with ever new delight ; and by bringing them thus within my reach in boy hood, the translator rendered me a service which, when I look back upon my intellectual life, I cannot estimate too highly.

I owe him much also for his notes, not only for the in formation concerning other Italian romances which they imparted, but also for introducing me to Spenser ; — how early, an incident which I well remember may show. Going with a relation into Bull's circulating library at Bath (an excellent one for those days), and asking whether they had the " Faery Queen," the per son who managed the shop said " yes, they had it, but it was in obsolete language, and the young gentleman would not understand it." But I, who had learned all I then knew of the history of England from Shakespear, and who had moreover read Beaumont and Fletcher, found no difficulty in Spenser's English, and felt in the beauty of his versification a charm in poetry of which I had never been fully sensible before. From that time I took Spenser for my master.

I drank also betimes of Chaucer's well. The taste which had been acquired in that school was confirmed by Percy's " Reliques " and Warton's " History of English Poetry ; " and a little later by Homer and the Bible It was not likely to be corrupted afterwards. My school-boy verses savoured of Gray, Mason, and my predecessor Warton ; and in the best of my juvenile pieces it may be seen how much the writer's mind had been imbued by Akenside. I ain conscious also of having derived much benefit at one time from Cowper, aud more from Bowles ; for which, and for the delight which his poems gave me at an age when we are most susceptible of such delight, my good friend at Bremhill, to whom I was then and long afterwards personally unknown, will allow me to make this grateful and cordial acknowledgment.

I have thus acknowledged all the specific obligations to my elders or contemporaries in the art, of which I am distinctly conscious. The advantages arising from intimate intercourse with those who were engaged in similar pursuits cannot be in like manner specified, be cause in their nature they are imperceptible ; but of such advantages no man has ever possessed more or greater, than at different times it has been my lot to enjoy. Personal attachment first, and family circumstances after wards, connected me long and closely with Mr. Coleridge ; and three-and-thirty years have ratified a friendship with Mr. Words worth, which we believe will not terminate with this life, and which it is a pleasure for us to know will be continued and cherished as an heir-loom by those who are dearest to us both. When I add what has been the greatest of

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. V all advantages, that I have passed more than half my life in retirement, conversing with books rather than men, constantly and unweari ably engaged in literary pursuits, communing with my own heart, and taking that course which upon mature consideration seemed best to myself, I have said every thing necessary to account for the characteristics of my poetry, whatever they may be. school ; between the date of these and of the latest there is an interval of six-and-forty years: as much difference, therefore, may be perceived in them, as in the different stages of life from boyhood to old age. Some of the earliest appeared in a little volume published at Bath in the autumn of 1794, with this title : — " Poems, containing the Retrospect, &c. by Robert Lovell and Robert Southey, 1795 ;" and with this motto — It was in a mood resembling in no slight de gree that wherewith a person in sound health, both of body aud mind, makes his will and sets his worldly affairs in order, that I entered upon the serious task of arranging and revising the whole of my poetical works.

AVhat, indeed, was it but to bring in review before me the dreams and aspirations of my youth, and the feelings whereto I had given that free utterance which by the usages of this world is per mitted to us in poetry, and in poetry alone . Of the smaller pieces in this collection there is scarcely one concerning which I cannot vividly call to mind when and where it was composed. I have perfect recollection of the spots where many, not of the scenes only, but of the images which I have described from nature, were ob served and noted. And how would it be possible for me to forget the interest taken in these poems, especially the longer and more ambitious works, by those persons nearest and dearest to me then, who witnessed their growth and completion ? Well may it be called a serious task thus to resuscitate the past !

But serious though it be, it is not painful to one who knows that the end of his journey cannot be far distant, and, by the blessing of God, looks on to its termination with sure and certain hope. " Minuentur atræ Carmine curte." Horace. At the end of that volume, Joan of Arc was announced as to be published by subscription. Others were published at Bristol, 1797, in a single volume, with this motto from Aken side: — " Goddess of the Lyre, — avith thee comes Majestic Truth ; and where Truth deigns to come Her sister Liberty will not be far.'* A second volume followed at Bristol in 1799, after the second edition of Joan of Arc, and commencing with the Vision of the Maid of Orleans. The motto to this was from the Epi logue to Spenser's Shepherds' Calendar : — " The better, please ; the worse, displease : I ask no more."

In the third edition of Joan of Arc, the Vision was printed separately, at the end ; and its place was supplied in the second edition of the Poems by miscellaneous pieces. A separate volume, entitled " Metrical Tales and other Poems," was published in 1805, with this advertisement : — "These Poems were pub lished some years ago in the Annual Anthology. (Bristol, 1799, 1800.) They have now been revised and printed in this collected form, because they have pleased those readers whom the Author was most desirous of pleasing. Let them be considered as the desultory productions of a man sedulously employed upon better things." Keswick, May 10. 1637. '_• These various pieces were re-arranged in three volumes, under the title of Minor Poems, in 1815, with this motto,

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TO " Nos hæc novimus esse nihil THE SECOND VOLUME, and they were published a second time in the same form, 1823. BEING THE FIRST OF TWO VOLUMES ENTITLED "JUVE- NILE AND MINOR POEMS," BEGINNING WITH " THE TRIUMPH OF WOMAN," AND ENDING WITH " HVMN TO THE PENATES." The Ballads and Metrical Tales contained in those volumes, belong to a different part of this collection ; their other contents are comprised here ; and the present volume consists, with very few exceptions, of pieces written in youth The earliest pieces in these Juvenile and Minor Poems were written before the writer had left VI

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. guest, and require monarchical respect,) with hasty provisions ; as if a poet might imitate the familiar despatch of faulconers, mount his Pe gasus, unhood his Muse, and, with a few flights, boast he hath provided a feast for a prince. Such posting upon Pegasus I have long since foreborne." Yet this eminently thoughtful poet was so far from seeking to suppress the crude compositions which he thus condemned, that he often expressed a great desire to see all his pieces collected in one volume ; and, con formably to his wish, they were so collected, after his decease, by his widow and his friend Herringman the bookseller. or early manhood. One of these written in my twentieth year, not having been published at the time, would never have been made public by my own act and deed ; but as Wat Tyler obtained considerable notoriety upon its surrep titious publication, it seemed proper that a production which will be specially noticed whenever the author shall be delivered over to the biographers, should be included here.

They who may desire to know more than is stated in the advertisement now prefixed to it, are referred to a Letter addressed to William Smith, Esq. M. P., 1817, reprinted in the second volume of my Essays Moral and Po litical, 183*2. Agreeing with Davenant in condemning the greater part of my juvenile pieces, it is only as crudities that I condemn them ; for in all that I have written, whether in prose or verse, there has never been a line which for any com punctious reason, living or dying, I could wish to blot. The second volume of this part of the Col lection contains one juvenile piece, and many which were written in early manhood. The remainder were composed in middle or later life, and comprise (with one exception, that will more conveniently be arranged elsewhere,) all the odes which as Poet Laureat I have written upon national occasions.

Of these the Carmen Trhintphale, and the Carmina Aulica, were separately published in quarto in 1 8 f 4, and reprinted together in a little volume in 1821. Davenant had not changed his opinion of his own youthful productions so as to overlook in his age the defects which he had once clearly perceived ; but he knew that pieces which it would indeed have been presumptuous to re produce on the score of their merit, might yet be deemed worthy of preservation on other grounds ; that to his family and friends, and to those who might take any interest in English poetry hereafter, they would possess peculiar value, as characteristic memorials of one who had held no inconsiderable place in the literature of his own times ; feeling, too, that he was not likely to be forgotten by posterity, he thought that after the specimen which he had produced in his Gondibert of a great and elaborate poem, his early attempts would be regarded with curiosity by such of his successors as should, like him, study poetry as an art, — for as an art it must be studied by those who would excel in it, though excellence in it is not attainable by art alone.

The Juvenile and Minor Poems in this Col lection bear an inconsiderable proportion to those of substantive length : for a small part only of my youthful effusions were spared from those autos-da-fe in which from time to time piles upon piles have been consumed. In middle life works of greater extent, or of a different kind, left me little leisure for occasional poetry; the impulse ceased, and latterly the inclination was so seldom felt, that it required an effort to call it forth. Sir William Davenant, in the Preface to Gondibert, " took occasion to accuse and con demn all those hasty digestions of thought which were published in his youth ; a sentence, said he, not pronounced out of melancholy rigour, but from a cheerful obedience to the just authority of experience. For that grave mistress of the world, experience, (in whose profitable school those before the Flood stayed long, but we, like wanton children, come thither late, yet too soon are called out of it, and fetched home by death,) hath taught me that the en genderings of unripe age become abortive and deformed ; and that 'tis a high presumption to entertain a nation (who are a poet's standing The cases are very few in which any thing more can be inferred from juvenile poetry, than that the aspirant possesses imitative talent, and the power of versifying, for which, as for music, there must be a certain natural aptitude.

It is not merely because "they have lacked culture and the inspiring aid of books*," that so many poets who have been "sown by Nature," • Wordsavorth. PREFACE, VII have " wanted the accomplishment of verse," and brought forth no fruit after their kind. Men of the highest culture, of whose poetical temperament no doubt can be entertained, and who had " taken to the height the measure of themselves," have yet failed in their endeavour to become poets, for want of that accomplishment. It is frequently possessed without any other qualification, or any capacity for improvement ; but then the innate and incurable defect that renders it abortive, is at once apparent. The state of literature in this kingdom during the last fifty years has produced the same effect upon poetry that academies produce upon painting ; in both arts every possible assistance is afforded to imitative talents, and in both they are carried as far as the talent ot imitation can reach.

But there is one respect in which poetry differs widely from the sister arts. Its fairest promise frequently proves deceitful, whereas both in painting and music the early indications of genius are unequivocal. The children who were called musical prodigies, have become great musicians ; and great painters, as far as their history is known, have displayed in child hood that accuracy of eye, and dexterity of hand, and shaping faculty, which are the prime requisites for their calling. But it is often found that voung poets of whom great expectductions to the press, for there are obstacles enough in the way of publication. Looking back upon my own career, and acknowledging my imprudence in this respect, I have never theless no cause to wish that I had pursued a different course. In this, as in other circum stances of my life, I have reason to be thankful to that merciful Providence which shaped the ends that I had roughly hewn for myself. Keswick, Sept. 30. 1837.

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TO THE THIRD VOLUME, BEING THE SECOND OF " JUVENILE AND MINOR POEMS." In a former Preface my obligations to Akenside were acknowledged, with especial reference to the Hymn to the Penates ; the earliest of my Inscriptions also originated in the pleasure with which I perused those of this favourite author. Others of a later date bear a nearer resemblance to the general character of Chia brera's epitaphs. Those which relate to the Peninsular War are part of a series which I once hoped to have completed. The epitaph for Bishop Butler was originally composed in the lapidary style, to suit the monument in Bristol Cathedral : it has been remodelled here, that I might express myself more at lennth, and in a style more accordant with my own judgement. ations were formed, have made no progress, and have even fallen short of their first per formances.

It may be said that this is because men apply themselves to music and to painting as their professions, but that no one makes poetry the business of his life. This, however, is not the only reason : the indications, as has already been observed, are far less certain ; and the circumstances of society are far less favourable for the moral and intellectual culture which is required for all the higher branches of poetry, . . all indeed that deserves the name. One thing remains to be explained, and I shall then have said all that it becomes me to say concerning these Minor Poems. It was stated in some of the newspapers that Walter Scott and myself became competitors for the Poet-Laureateship upon the death of Mr. Pye ; that we met accidentally at the Prince Regent's levee, each in pursuit of his pretensions, and that some words which were not over-courteous on either side passed between us ran the occasion; — to such impudent fabrications will those persons resort who make it their business to pander for public curiosity.

The circumstances relating to that appointment have been made known in Mr. Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter. His conduct was, as it always was, My advice as to publishing, has often been asked by young poets, who suppose that expe rience has qualified me to give it, and who have not yet learnt how seldom advice is taken, and how little therefore it is worth. As a general rule, it may be said that one who is not deceived in the estimate which he has formed of his own powers, can neither write too much in his youth, nor publish too little. It cannot, however, be needful to caution the present race of poetical adventures against hurrying with their pro-

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. characteristically generous, and in the highest degree friendly. Indeed, it was neither in his nature nor in mine to place ourselves in com petition with any one, or ever to regard a con temporary as a rival. The world was wide enough for us all. Upon his declining the office, and using his influence, without my knowledge, to obtain it for me, his biographer says*, "Mr. Southey was invited to accept the vacant laurel ; and to the honour of the Prince Regent, when he signified that his acceptance must depend on the office being thenceforth so modified as to demand none of the old formal odes, leaving it to the Poet-Laureate to choose his own time for celebrating any great public event that might occur, his Royal Highness had the good sense and good taste at once to acquiesce in the pro priety of this alteration.

The office was thus relieved from the burden of ridicule which had, in spite of so many illustrious names, adhered to it." The alteration, however, was not brought about exactly in this manner. I was on the way to London when the correspondence upon this subject between Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Croker took place. A letter from Scott followed me thither, and on my arrival in town I was informed of what had been done. No wish for the Laureateship had passed across my mind, nor had I ever dreamt that it would be proposed to me. My first impulse was to decline it ; not from any fear of ridicule, still less of obloquy, but because I had ceased for several years to write occasional verses : the inclination had departed ; and though willing as a bee to work from morn till night in collecting honey, I had a great dislike to spinning like a spider.

Other considerations overcame this reluctance, and made it my duty to accept the appointment. I then expressed a wish to Mr. Croker that it might be placed upon a foot ing which would exact from the holder nothing like a schoolboy's task, but leave him at liberty to write when, and in what manner, he thought best, and thus render the office as honourable as it was originally designed to be. Upon this, Mr. Croker, whose friendliness to me upon every occasion I gladly take this opportunity of acknowledging, observed that it was not for us to make terms with the Prince Regent. " Go you," said he, " and write your Ode for the New Year. You can never have a better sub ject than the present state of the war affords you." He added that some fit time might be found for representing the matter to the Prince in its proper light.

My appointment had no sooner been made known, than I received a note with Sir William Parsons's compliments, requesting that I would let him have the Ode as soon as possible, Mr. Pye having always provided him with it six weeks before the New Year's Day. I was not wanting in punctuality ; nevertheless, it was a great trouble to Sir William that the office should have been conferred upon a poet who did not walk in the ways of his predecessor, and do according to all things that he had done ; for Mr. Pye had written his odes always in regular stanzas and in rhyme. Poor Sir Wil liam, though he had not fallen upon evil tongues and evil times, thought he had fallen upon evil ears when he was to set verses like mine to music. But the labour which the Chief Musician bestowed upon the verses of the Chief Poet was so much labour lost.

The performance of the Annual Odes had been suspended from the time ofthe King's illness, in 1810. Under the circumstances of his malady, any festal celebration of the birth-day would have been a violation of natural feeling and public propriety. On those occasions it was certain that nothing would be expected from me during the life of George III. But the New Year's performance might perhaps be called for, and for that, there fore, I always prepared. Upon the accession of George IV., I made ready an Ode for St. George's Day, which Mr. Shield, who was much better satisfied with his yoke-fellow than Sir William had been, thought happily suited for his purpose. It was indeed well suited for us both. All my other Odes related to the circumstances of the passing times, and could have been appropriately performed only when they were composed ; but this was a standing subject, and, till this should be called for, it was needless to provide any thing else.

The annual performance had, however, by this time fallen completely into disuse ; and thus terminated a custom which may truly be said to have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Vol. iii. p. 88. Keswick, Dec. 12. 1837.

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. IX tions rendered it impossible even to ascertain its site, — which is now included within the grounds of a Nunnery ! The bosom friends with whom I associated there have all departed before me ; and of the domestic circle in which my happiness was then centered, I am the sole survivor.

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TO THE FOURTH VOLUME. CONTAINING " THALABA THE DESTROYER." When we removed from Westbury at Mid summer, 1799, I had reached the penultimate book of Madoc. That poem was finished on the 12th of July following, at Kingsdown, Bristol, in the house of an old lady, whose portrait hangs, with that of my own mother, in the room wherein I am now writing. The son who lived with her was one of my dearest friends, and one of the best men I ever knew or heard of. In those days I was an early riser : the time so gained was usually employed in carrying on the poem which I had in hand; and when Charles Danvers came down to breakfast on the morning aster Madoc was com pleted, I had the first hundred lines of Thalaba to show him, fresh from the mint. It was said, in the original Preface to Joan of Arc, that the Author would not be in England to witness its reception, but that he would at tend to liberal criticism, and hope to profit by it in the composition of a poem upon the dis covery of America by the Welsh prince Madoc.

That subject I had fixed upon when a school boy, and had often conversed upon the proba bilities of the story with the schoolfellow to whom, sixteen years afterwards, I had the satisfaction of inscribing the poem. It was com menced at Bath in the autumn of 1794 ; but, upon putting Joan of Arc to the press, its pro gress was necessarily suspended, and it was not resumed till the second edition of that work hail been completed. Then it became my chief occupation during twelve months that I resided in the village of Westbury, near Bristol. This was one of the happiest portions of my life. I never before or since produced so much poetry in the same space of time. The smaller pieces were communicated by letter to Charles Lamb, and had the advantage of his animadversions. I was then also in habits of the most frequent and intimate intercourse with Davy, — then in the flower and freshness of his youth.

We were within an easy walk of each other, over some of the most beautiful ground in that beautiful part of England. When I went to the Pneumatic Institution, he had to tell me of some new experiment or discovery, and of the views which it opened for him ; and when he came to Westbury there was a fresh portion of Madoc for his hearing. Davy encouraged me with his hearty approbation during its progress ; and the bag of nitrous oxyde with which he generally regaled me upon my visits to him, was not required for raising my spirits to the degree of settled fair, and keeping them at that elevation. But this poem was neither crudely con ceived nor hastily undertaken. I had fixed upon the ground, four years before, for a Ma hommedan tale ; and in the course of that time the plan had been formed and the materials collected.