"O ye spires of Oxford! domes and towers! Gardens and groves! your presence overpowers The soberness of reason." -Sonnet: "Oxford," p. 301. And what, for this frail world, were all Did no responsive harp, no pen, Yea, what were mighty Nature's self? That hourly speaks within us? Nor deem that localised Romance Ah, no! the visions of the past Life as she is our changeful Life, Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day By the "last Minstrel," (not the last!) Ere he his Tale recounted. Flow on for ever, Yarrow Stream! Fulfil thy pensive duty, Well pleased that future Bards should chant For simple hearts thy beauty; To dream-light dear while yet unseen, Dear to the common sunshine, To memory's shadowy moonshine! TO SIR WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON ... MORESBY, June 25, 1832. My dear sister has been languishing more than seven months in a sick-room, nor dare I or any of her friends entertain a hope that her strength will ever be restored; and the course of public affairs, as I think I told you before, threatens, in my view, destruction to the Institutions of the country; an event which, whatever may rise out of it hereafter, cannot but produce distress and misery for two or three generations at least. In any times I am but at best a poor and unpunctual correspondent, yet I am pretty sure you would have heard from me but for this reason; therefore let the statement pass for an apology as far as you think fit. It gives me much pleasure that you and Coleridge have met, and that you were not disappointed in the conversation of a man from whose writings you had previously drawn so much delight and improvement. He and my beloved sister are the two beings to whom my intellect is most indebted, and they are now proceeding, as it were pari passu, along the path of sickness-I will not say towards the grave, but I trust towards a blessed immortality. It was not my intention to write so seriously; my heart is full, and you must excuse it. You do not tell me how you like Cambridge as a place, nor what you thought of its buildings and other works of art. Did you not see Oxford as well? It has greatly the advantage over Cambridge in its happy intermixture of streets, churches, and collegiate buildings. A fortnight ago I came hither to my son and daughter, who are living a gentle, happy, quiet, and useful life together. My daughter Dora is also with us. . . . A week ago appeared here Mr W. S. Landor the poet, and author of the Imaginary Conversations, which probably have fallen in your way. We had never met before, though several letters had passed between us, and as I had not heard that he was in England, my gratification in seeing him was heightened by surprise. We passed a day together at the house of my friend Mr Rawson, on the banks of Wast-Water. His conversation is lively and original, his learning great, though he will not allow it, and his laugh the heartiest I have heard for a long time. It is, I think, not much less than twenty years since he left England for France and afterwards Italy, where he hopes to end his days, nay, has fixed near Florence upon the spot where he wishes to be buried. TO HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE July 29, 1834. It is nearly forty years since I first became acquainted with him whom we have just lost; and though, with the exception of six weeks when we were on the Continent 1 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose death occurred on July 25, 1834. |