Tuesday 12 July 2016

'To W.J.H. While Playing on his Flute' (1796)


Also known as 'To the Rev W.J.H. While Teaching A Young Lady Some Song-Tunes on his Flute'. It was published in Poems (1796) and not republished by Coleridge in his lifetime, although Joseph Cottle's Early Recollections, chiefly relating to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1837) reprints it under the title at the head of his blogpost, and the posthumous Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1837-39) has it as, simply, 'To the Rev. W. J. Hort'. Hort was a Bristol schoolmaster as well a Unitarian minister, and the author of a great many works of pedagogy, epitomes of English history and the Bible, French grammars, English grammars, books on Geography and so on. Presumably the 'young lady' is Sara Fricker (or Sara Coleridge if the poem was written after 4th October 1795); and presumably the scene being painted is one in which Hort is teaching Sara to play the flute. 'Freedom's UNDIVIDED dell' mentioned in the third stanza is a reference to the Susquehannah, and the Pantisocratic plans Coleridge was making with Southey: the 'Monody on the Death of Chatterton' (1794) talks of Coleridge crossing the Atlantic to 'peaceful Freedom's UNDIVIDED dale' [129]. So in effect Coleridge is saying to his friend: when Sara and I are settled in the rude romantic glens of America she will play her flute the way you have taught her, and this will remind me of you, whereupon I will shed happy tears.

Hush! ye clamorous Cares! be mute!
Again, dear Harmonist! again,
Thro' the hollow of thy flute,
Breathe that passion-warbled strain:
Till MEMORY each form shall bring
The loveliest of her shadowy throng;
And HOPE that soars on sky-lark wing,
Carol wild her gladdest song!

O skill'd with magic spell to roll
The thrilling tones, that concentrate the soul!
Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again,
While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild;
And bid her raise the Poet's kindred strain
In soft impassion'd voice, correctly wild.

In freedom's UNDIVIDED DELL
Where toil and health, with mellowed love shall dwell,
Far from folly, far from men,
In the rude romantic glen,
Up the cliff, and through the glade.
Wand'ring with the dear-loved maid,
I shall listen to the lay,
And ponder on thee far away!
Still, as she bids those thrilling notes aspire
(“Making my fond attuned heart her lyre”),
Thy honor'd form, my Friend! shall re-appear.
And I will thank thee with a raptur'd tear.
It's not Coleridge's best work, really; perhaps that's why he never reprinted it. But it has its moments, I think. The parenthetical third line from the end, there, is certainly quoting something; but no editor has been able to work out what.



J C C Mays is to the point:



I don't think this is a line of English poetry, and Google agrees with me. But I wonder if it might be a reference to that schoolmaster's favourite, Horace; specifically to Odes book 3: 9, 9-10:
me nunc Thressa Chloe regit,
dulcis docta modos et citharae sciens.
This means 'I am overpowered by Thracian Chloe's/sweet measure and her skill with the lyre', and a little less exactly means: 'Chloe's sweet attunement and skill with the lyre have overcome me', which is at least on the way to 'Chloe plays on my heart as her own fondly attuned lyre'. It's a pretty famous line, actually. Here, for example, is Edward John Poynter's Chloe, dulcis docta modos et citharae sciens (1893):


There's a wrinkle, though. Horace's poem is a dialogue between Horace and Lydia in which they remember how in love they used to be. Used to be, but not anymore. In turn each confesses that they've moved on to other people now: Horace to Chloe of the fond, attuned lyre; and Lydia to 'young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus'. The poem ends with them reconciled and pledging to love one another and live together until they die, but the whole drift of the poem stresses their respective inconstancy, so you don't really believe it. That's a strange, or perhaps a strangely prescient, note to strike towards the end of this poem; after all, Coleridge's love for Sara Fricker didn't last. And indeed maybe it was that fact that meant older separated-from-his-wife Coleridge, looking to assemble his 1817 collected poems, decided to omit these 1795 verses.

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