# Poems on Various Subjects (Coleridge)/Religious Musings

Religious Musings.
page
What tho' first, In years unseason'd, I attun'd the Lay To idle Passion and unreal Woe? Yet serious Truth her empire o'er my song Hath now asserted: Falshood's evil brood, Vice and deceitful Pleasure, She at once Excluded, and my Fancy's careless toil Drew to the better cause!
Akenside.
page
ARGUMENT.
page
RELIGIOUS MUSINGS
A DESULTORY POEM,
WRITTEN
ON CHRISTMAS' EVE,
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 1794.
THIS is the time, when most divine to hear, As with a Cherub's "loud uplifted" trump The voice of Adoration my thrill'd heart Rouses! And with the rushing noise of wings Transports my spirit to the favor'd fields5 Of Bethlehem, there in shepherd's guise to fit
Sublime of extacy, and mark entranc'd The glory-streaming Vision throng the night. Ah not more radiant, nor loud harmonies Hymning more unimaginably sweet10 With choral songs around th' Eternal Mind, The constellated company of Worlds Danc'd jubilant: what time the startling East Saw from her dark womb leap her flamy Child! Glory to God in the Highest! Peace on Earth!15
Yet Thou more bright than all that Angel Blaze, Despised Galilæan! Man of Woes! For chiefly in the oppressed Good Man's face The Great Invisible (by symbols seen) Shines with peculiar and concentred light,
When all of Self regardless the scourg'd Saint Mourns for th' Oppressor. O thou meekest Man!25 Meek Man and lowliest of the Sons of Men! Who thee beheld thy imag'd Father saw. His Power and Wisdom from thy awful eye Blended their beams, and loftier Love sate there Musing on human weal, and that dread hour30 When thy insulted Anguish wing'd the prayer Harp'd by Archangels, when they sing of Mercy! Which when th' Almighty heard, from forth his Throne Diviner light flash'd extacy o'er Heaven! Heav'n's hymnings paus'd: and Hell her yawning mouth35 Clos'd a brief moment.
Lovely was the Death Of Him, whose Life was Love! Holy with power He on the thought-benighted Sceptic beam'd Manifest Godhead, melting into day40 What Mists dim-floating of Idolatry Split and mishap'd the Omnipresent Sire: And first by Terror, Mercy's startling prelude, Uncharm'd the Spirit spell-bound with earthy lusts Till of it's nobler Nature it 'gan feel45 Dim recollections; and thence soar'd to Hope, Strong to believe whate'er of mystic good Th' Eternal dooms for his Immortal Sons. From Hope and stronger Faith to perfect Love Attracted and absorb'd: and center'd there50 God only to behold, and know, and feel, Till by exclusive Consciousness of God
All self-annihilated it shall make God it's Identity: God all in all! We and our Father one!55
And blest are they, Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven, Their strong eye darting thro' the deeds of Men Adore with stedfast unpresuming gaze Him, Nature's Essence, Mind, and Energy!60 And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend Treading beneath their feet all visible things As steps, that upward to their Father's Throne Lead gradual—else nor glorified nor lov'd. They nor Contempt imbosom nor Revenge:65 For they dare know of what may seem deform The Supreme Fair sole Operant: in whose sight
All things are pure, his strong controlling Love Alike from all educing perfect good.
Their's too celestial courage, inly arm'd——70 Dwarfing Earth's giant brood, what time they muse On their great Father, great beyond compare! And marching onwards view high o'er their heads His waving Banners of Omnipotence.
Who the Creator love, created might75 Dread not: within their tents no Terrors walk. For they are Holy Things before the Lord Aye-unprofan'd, tho' Earth should league with Hell! God's Altar grasping with an eager hand Fear, the wild-visag'd, pale, eye-starting wretch,80 Sure-refug'd hears his hot pursuing fiends
Yell at vain distance. Soon refresh'd from Heaven He calms the throb and tempest of his heart. His countenance settles: a soft solemn bliss Swims in his eye: his swimming eye uprais'd:85 And Faith's whole armour glitters on his limbs! And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe, A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds All things of terrible seeming. Yea, and there, Unshudder'd, unaghasted, he shall view90 E'en the Seven Spirits, who in the latter day Will shower hot pestilence on the sons of men. For he shall know, his heart shall understand, That kindling with intenser Deity They from the Mercy-seat—like rosy flames,95 From God's celestial Mercy-seat will flash, And at the wells of renovating Love
Fill their Seven Vials with salutary wrath, To sickly Nature more medicinal That what soft balm the weeping good man pours100 Into the lone despoiled trav'ller's wounds!
Thus from th' Elect, regenerate thro' faith, Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty Cares Drink up the spirit and the dim regards Self-center. Lo they vanish! or acquire 105 New names, new features—by supernal grace Enrob'd with Light, and naturaliz'd in Heaven. As when a Shepherd on a vernal morn Thro' some thick fog creeps tim'rous with slow foot, Darkling he fixes on th' immediate road 110 His downward eye: all else of fairest kind Hid or deform'd. But lo, the bursting Sun!
Touched by th' enchantment of that sudden beam Strait the black vapor melteth, and in globes Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree:115 On every leaf, on every blade it hangs! Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays. And wide around the landscape streams with glory!
There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy name is Love.120 Truth of subliming import! with the which Who feeds and saturates his constant soul, He from his small particular orbit flies With blest outstarting! From himself he flies, Stands in the Sun, and with no partial gaze125 Views all creation, and he loves it all, And blesses it, and calls it very good!
This is indeed to dwell with the most High! Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim Can press no nearer to th' Almighty's Throne.130 But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts Unfeeling of our universal Sire, And that in his vast family no Cain Injures uninjur'd (in her best-aim'd blow Victorious Murder a blind Suicide)135 Haply for this some younger Angel now Looks down on Human Nature: and, behold! A sea of blood bestrew'd with wrecks, where mad Embattling Interests on each other rush With unhelm'd Rage!140
'Tis the sublime of man, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves
Parts and proportions of one wond'rous whole: This fraternizes man, this constitutes Our charities and bearings. But 'tis God 145 Diffus'd thro' all, that doth make all one whole; This the word superstition, him except, Aught to desire, Supreme Reality! The plenitude and permanence of bliss! O Fiends of Superstition! not that oft150 Your pitiless rites have floated with man's blood The skull-pil'd Temple, not for this shall wrath Thunder against you from the Holy One! But (whether ye th' unclimbing Bigot mock With secondary Gods, or if more pleas'd155 Ye petrify th' imbrothell'd Atheist's heart, The Atheist your worst slave) I o'er some plain Peopled with Death, and to the silent Sun
Steaming with tyrant-murder'd multitudes;
Or where mid groans and shrieks loud-laughing trade160 More hideous packs his bales of living anguish; I will raise up a mourning, O ye Fiends!
And curse your spells, that film the eye of Faith;
Hiding the present God, whose presence lost,
The moral world's cohesion, we become165 An Anarchy of Spirits! Toy-bewitch'd,
Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul
No common center Man, no common fire
Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing,
Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart170 Thro' courts and cities the smooth Savage roams
Feeling himself, his own low Self the whole,
When he by sacred sympathy might make
The whole one self! self, that no alien knows! Self, far diffus'd as Fancy's wing can travel!175 Self, spreading still! Oblivious of it's own, Yet all of all possessing! This is Faith! This the Messiah's destin'd victory!
But first offences needs must come! Even now (Black Hell laughs horrible—to hear the scoff!)180 Thee to defend, meek Galilæan! Thee And thy mild laws of Love unutterable, Mistrust and Enmity have burst the bands Of social Peace; and list'ning Treachery lurks With pious fraud to snare a brother's life;185 And childless widows o'er the groaning land Wail numberless; and orphans weep for bread! Thee to defend, dear Saviour of Mankind!
Thee, Lamb of God! Thee, blameless Prince of Peace! From all sides rush the thirsty brood of war!190 Austria, and that foul Woman of the North, The lustful Murd'ress of her wedded Lord! And he, connatural Mind! whom (in their songs So bards of elder time had haply feign'd) Some Fury fondled in her hate to man,195 Bidding her serpent hair in tortuous folds Lick his young face, and at his mouth imbreathe Horrible sympathy! And leagued with these Each petty German Princeling, nurs'd in gore! Soul-harden'd barterers of human blood! 200 Death's prime Slave-merchants! Scorpion-whips of Fate! Nor least in savagery of holy zeal, Apt for the yoke, the race degenerate, Whom Britain erst had blush'd to call her sons!
Thee to defend the Moloch Priest prefers205 The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd That Deity, accomplice Deity In the fierce jealousy of waken'd wrath Will go forth with our armies and our fleets To scatter the red ruin on their foes! 210 O blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds With blessedness! Lord of unsleeping Love, From everlasting Thou! We shall not die. These, even these, in mercy didst thou form, Teachers of Good thro' Evil, by brief wrong215 Making Truth lovely, and her future might Magnetic o'er the fix'd untrembling heart.
In the primeval age a dateless while The vacant Shepherd wander'd with his flock
Pitching his tent where'er the green grass wav'd.220 But soon Imagination conjur'd up An host of new desires: with busy aim, Each for himself, Earth's eager children toil'd. So Property began, twy-streaming fount, Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall.225 Hence the soft couch, and many-colour'd robe, The timbrel, and arch'd dome and coftly feast With all th' inventive arts, that nurs'd the soul To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants Unsensualiz'd the mind, which in the means230 Learnt to forget the grossness of the end, Best-pleasur'd with it's own activity. And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm, The dagger'd Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests—all the sore ills 235
That vex and desolate our mortal life. Wide-wasting ills! yet each th' immediate source Of mightier good. Their keen necessities To ceaseless action goading human thought Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord;240 And the pale-featur'd Sage's trembling hand Strong as an host of armed Deities! From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War Sprang heavenly Science: and from Science Freedom. O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards245 Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls Conscious of their high dignities from God Brook not Wealth's rivalry; and they who long Enamour'd with the charms of order hate Th' unseemly disproportion; and whoe'er250 Turn with mild sorrow from the victor's car
And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the patriot Sage Call'd the red lightnings from th' o'er-rushing cloud And dash'd the beauteous Terrors on the earth 255 Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er Measur'd firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day, When flung to rage by Pity eloquent men Have rous'd with pealing voice th' unnumber'd tribes260 That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind, These hush'd awhile with patient eye serene Shall watch the mad careering of the storm; Then o'er the wild and wavy chaos rush And tame th' outrageous mass, with plastic might265 Moulding Confusion to such perfect forms, As erst were wont, bright visions of the day!
To float before them, when, the Summer noon, Beneath some arch'd romantic rock reclin'd They felt the sea-breeze lift their youthful locks,270 Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve, Wandering with desultory feet inhal'd The wafted perfumes, and the flocks and woods And many-tinted streams and setting Sun With all his gorgeous company of clouds275 Extatic gaz'd! then homeward as they stray'd Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mus'd Why there was Misery in a world so fair.
Ah far remov'd from all that glads the sense, From all that softens or ennobles Man,280 The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads They gape at pageant Power, nor recognize Their cots' transmuted plunder! From the tree
Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen, Rudely disbranch'd! O blest Society!285 Fitliest depictur'd by some sun-scorcht waste, Where oft majestic thro' the tainted noon The Simoom fails, before whose purple pomp Who falls not prostrate dies! And where, by night, Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs 290 The lion couches; or hyæna dips Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws; Or serpent rolls his vast moon-glittering bulk, Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth yells, His bones loud crashing!295
O ye numberless, Whom foul Oppression's ruffian gluttony Drives from life's plenteous feast! O thou poor Wretch,
Who nurs'd in darkness and made wild by want Dost roam for prey, yea thy unnatural hand300 Liftest to deeds of blood! O pale-eyed Form, The victim of seduction, doom'd to know Polluted nights and days of blasphemy; Who in loath'd orgies with lewd wassailers Must gaily laugh, while thy remember'd Home305 Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart! O aged Women! ye who weekly catch The morsel tost by law-forc'd Charity, And die so slowly, that none call it murder! O loathly-visag'd Suppliants! ye that oft310 Rack'd with disease, from the unopen'd gate Of the full Lazar-house, heart-broken crawl! O ye to scepter'd Glory's gore-drench'd field Forc'd or ensnar'd, who swept by Slaughter's scythe,
(Stern nurse of Vultures!) steam in putrid heaps!315 O thou poor Widow, who in dreams dost view Thy Husband's mangled corse, and from short doze Start'st with a shriek: or in thy half-thatch'd cot Wak'd by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold, Cow'rest o'er thy screaming baby! Rest awhile,320 Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise, More blood must steam, or ere your wrongs be full. Yet is the day of Retribution nigh: The Lamb of God hath open'd the fifth seal: And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire325 Th' innumerable multitude of Wrongs By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile, Children of Wretchedness! The hour is nigh: And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men, The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World,330
With all that fix'd on high like stars of Heaven Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth, Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm. Ev'n now the storm begins: each gentle name,335 Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy Tremble far-off—for lo! the Giant Frenzy Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge,340 Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits Nursing th' impatient earthquake. O return! Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorred Form Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp,345 Who drank iniquity in cups of gold,
Whose names were many and all blasphemous, Hath met the horrible judgement! Whence that cry? The mighty army of foul Spirits shriek'd, Disherited of earth! For She hath fallen350 On whose black front was written Mystery; She that reel'd heavily, whose wine was blood; She that work'd whoredom with the Dæmon Power And from the dark embrace all evil things Brought forth and nurtured: mitred Atheism;355 And patient Folly who on bended knee Gives back the steel that stabb'd him; and pale Fear Hunted by ghastlier terrors than surround Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight! Return pure Faith! return meek Piety!360 The kingdoms of the world are your's: each heart Self-govern'd, the vast family of Love Rais'd from the common earth by common toil
Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights As float to earth, permitted visitants!365 When on some solemn jubilee of Saints The sapphire-blazing gates of Paradise Are thrown wide open, and thence voyage forth Detachments wild of seraph-warbled airs, And odors snatch'd from beds of amaranth,370 And they, that from the chrystal river of life Spring up on freshen'd wing, ambrosial gales! The favor'd good man in his lonely walk Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks Strange bliss which he shall recognize in heaven.375 And such delights, such strange beatitude Seize on my young anticipating heart When that blest future rushes on my view!
For in his own and in his Father's might The Saviour comes! While as to solemn strains380 The thousand years lead up their mystic dance, Old Ocean claps his hands! the Desert shouts! And soft gales wafted from the haunts of Spring Melt the primœval North! The mighty Dead Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time385 With conscious zeal had urg'd Love's wond'rous plan Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump The odorous groves of earth reparadis'd Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hush'd Adoring Newton his serener eye390 Raises to heaven: and he of mortal kind Wisest, he first who mark'd the ideal tribes Down the fine fibres from the sentient brain
Roll subtly-surging. Pressing on his steps Lo! Priestley there, Patriot, and Saint, and Sage,395 Whom that my fleshly eye hath never seen A childish pang of impotent regret Hath thrill'd my heart. Him from his native land Statesmen blood-stain'd and Priests idolatrous By dark lies mad'ning the blind multitude 400 Drove with vain hate: calm, pitying he retir'd, And mus'd expectant on these promis'd years.
O Years! the blest preeminence of Saints! Sweeping before the rapt prophetic Gaze Bright as what glories of the jasper throne405 Stream from the gorgeous and face-veiling plumes Of Spirits adoring! Ye, blest Years! must end, And all beyond is darkness! Heights most strange!
Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing.
For who of woman born may paint the hour,410 When seiz'd in his mid course the Sun shall wane
Making noon ghastly! Who of woman born
May image in his wildly-working thought,
How the black-visag'd, red-eyed Fiend outstretcht
Beneath th' unsteady feet of Nature groans415 In feverish slumbers—destin'd then to wake,
When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name
And Angels shout, Destruction! How his arm
The mighty Spirit lifting high in air
Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One,420 Time is no more!
Believe thou, O my soul,
Life is a vision shadowy of Truth,
And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire,425 And lo! the Throne of the redeeming God Forth flashing unimaginable day Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.
Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er With untir'd gaze th' immeasurable fount 430 Ebullient with creative Deity! And ye of plastic power, that interfus'd Roll thro' the grosser and material mass In organizing surge! Holies of God! (And what if Monads of the infinite mind?)435 I haply journeying my immortal courfe Shall sometime join your mystic choir! Till then I discipline my young noviciate thought
In ministeries of heart-stirring song, And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing440 Soaring aloft I breathe th' empyreal air Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love, Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul As the great Sun, when he his influence Sheds on the frost-bound waters—The glad stream445 Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows.