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Title: Lines Composed In A Concert-Room
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge [
More Titles by Coleridge]
Nor cold, nor stern, my soul! yet I detest
These scented Rooms, where, to a gaudy throng,
Heaves the proud Harlot her distended breast,
In intricacies of laborious song. These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign 5
To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint;
But when the long-breathed singer's uptrilled strain
Bursts in a squall--they gape for wonderment.
Hark! the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate!
Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer 10
My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,
While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.
O give me, from this heartless scene released,
To hear our old Musician, blind and grey, 15
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kissed,)
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light. 20
Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide
Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees,
For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied,
On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease, 25
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,
Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow,
That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.
But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers,
And the gust pelting on the out-house shed 30
Makes the cock shrilly in the rainstorm crow,
To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe,
Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead,
Whom his own true-love buried in the sands!
Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures 35
Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures
The things of Nature utter; birds or trees,
Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves,
Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves,
Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. 40
1799.
FOOTNOTES:
First published in the _Morning Post_, September 24, 1799: included in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, 1828, 1829, and 1834. There is no evidence as to the date of composition. In a letter to Coleridge, dated July 5, 1796, Lamb writes 'Have a care, good Master Poet, of the Statute _de Contumeliâ_. What do you mean by calling Madame Mara harlots and naughty things? The goodness of the verse would not save you in a Court of Justice'--but it is by no means certain that Lamb is referring to the _Lines Composed in a Concert-Room_, or that there is any allusion in line 3 to Madame Mara. If, as J. D. Campbell suggested, the poem as it appeared in the _Morning Post_ is a recast of some earlier verses, it is possible that the scene is Ottery, and that 'Edmund' is the 'Friend who died dead of' a 'Frenzy Fever' (vide _ante_, p. 76). In this case a probable date would be the summer of 1793. But the poem as a whole suggests a later date. Coleridge and Southey spent some weeks at Exeter in September 1799. They visited Ottery St. Mary, and walked through Newton Abbot to Ashburton and Dartmouth. It is possible that the 'Concert-Room,' the 'pert Captain,' and 'primmer Priest' are reminiscences of Exeter, the 'heath-plant,' and the 'ocean caves' of Dartmoor and Torbay. If so, the 'shame and absolute rout' (l. 49 of variant, p. 325) would refer to the victory of Suwaroff over Joubert at Novi, which took place August 15, 1799. See _Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 307.
LINENOTES:
[14] heartless] loathsome M. P.
[24] Around whose roots M. P., S. L.
[40] thin] then M. P.
[After line 40]
Dear Maid! whose form in solitude I seek,
Such songs in such a mood to hear thee sing,
It were a deep delight!--But thou shalt fling
Thy white arm round my neck, and kiss my cheek,
And love the brightness of my gladder eye 45
The while I tell thee what a holier joy It were in proud and stately step to go,
With trump and timbrel clang, and popular shout,
To celebrate the shame and absolute rout
Unhealable of Freedom's latest foe, 50
Whose tower'd might shall to its centre nod.
When human feelings, sudden, deep and vast,
As all good spirits of all ages past
Were armied in the hearts of living men,
Shall purge the earth, and violently sweep 55
These vile and painted locusts to the deep,
Leaving un---- undebas'd
A ---- world made worthy of its God.
M. P.
[The words in lines 57, 58 were left as blanks in the Morning Post, from what cause or with what object must remain a matter of doubt.]
[The end]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem: Lines Composed In A Concert-Room
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