Coleridge read Percy’s Reliques<\/em> and was ‘deeply interested in the Englishand Scottish popular ballads’ (Lowes, The Road to Xanadu<\/em>). The influence of these ballads comes through in the meter, word choice, and spelling in ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere’, especially in the first version in Lyrical Ballads<\/em> (1798). In ‘Rime’ as in ‘Spens’, the moon is a powerful image evoking the power and unpredictailiby of nature. The moon serves as an omen in both works and is frequently the object of supernatural beliefs among the mariners who experience hardships at sea under its glow. [Excerpt from Part II]<\/strong><\/p>\n We listened and looked sideways up! One after one, by the star-dogged Moon<\/strong>, Four times fifty living men, [Excerpt from Part V]<\/strong> The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The loud wind never reached the ship, They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Using ‘Spens’ as an epigraph, Coleridge exhibits both the influence of the ballad and its moon imagery on his work.<\/p>\n Selected Criticism:<\/span><\/p>\n Fiona Stafford, ‘The Grand Old Ballad in Coleridge’s “Dejection”‘. Starting Lines in Scottish, Irish, and English Poetry: from Burns to Heany. (<\/em>Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). pp. 91-141.<\/p>\n R.A. Benthall, ‘New Moons, Old Ballads, and Prophetic Dialogues in Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode”‘. Studies in Romanticism,<\/em> Vol. 37, No. 4 (Boston University: Winter, 1998), pp. 591-614. JSTOR<\/a><\/p>\n John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927), pp. 172-333.<\/p>\n Charles Wharton Stork, ‘The Influence of the Popular Ballad on Wordsworth and Coleridge’, PMLA<\/em>, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Modern Language Association: 1914), pp. 299-326. JSTOR<\/a><\/p>\n Links: Internet Archive<\/a>; GoogleBooks<\/a>; PoemHunter<\/a><\/p>\n [Excerpt from Dejection: An Ode]<\/strong> Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence I <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (1798) ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere’ Coleridge read Percy’s Reliques and was ‘deeply interested in the Englishand Scottish popular ballads’ (Lowes, The Road to Xanadu). The influence of these ballads comes through in the meter, word choice, and spelling … Continue reading
\nLinks: Internet Archive<\/a>; Poets.org<\/a>; GoogleBooks<\/a>; RPO<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nFear at my heart, as at a cup,
\nMy life-blood seemed to sip!
\nThe stars were dim, and thick the night,
\nThe steersman’s face by his lamp gleamed white;
\nFrom the sails the dew did drip–
\nTill clomb above the eastern bar
\nThe horn’ed Moon<\/strong>, with one bright star
\nWithin the nether tip.<\/p>\n
\nToo quick for groan or sigh,
\nEach turned his face with a ghastly pang,
\nAnd cursed me with his eye.<\/p>\n
\n(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
\nWith heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
\nThey dropped down one by one.<\/p>\n
\nAnd the coming wind did roar more loud,
\nAnd the sails did sigh like sedge;
\nAnd the rain poured down from one black cloud;
\nThe Moon was at its edge.<\/p>\n
\nThe Moon was at its side:
\nLike waters shot from some high crag,
\nThe lightning fell with never a jag,
\nA river steep and wide.<\/p>\n
\nYet now the ship moved on!
\nBeneath the lightning and the Moon
\nThe dead men gave a groan.<\/p>\n
\nNor spake, nor moved their eyes;
\nIt had been strange, even in a dream,
\nTo have seen those dead men rise…<\/p>\n(ca 1802) ‘Dejection: An Ode’<\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>
\nLate, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
\nWith the old Moon in her arms ;
\nAnd I fear, I fear, My Master dear !
\nWe shall have a deadly storm.<\/p>\n
\n———————————————<\/p>\n
\nWell! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
\nThe grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
\nThis night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
\nUnroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
\nThan those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
\nOr the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
\nUpon the strings of this \u00c6olian lute,
\nWhich better far were mute.
\nFor lo! the New-moon winter-bright!
\nAnd overspread with phantom light,
\n(With swimming phantom light o’erspread
\nBut rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
\nI see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
\nThe coming-on of rain and squally blast.
\nAnd oh ! that even now the gust were swelling,
\nAnd the slant night-shower driving loud and fast !
\nThose sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,
\nAnd sent my soul abroad,
\nMight now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
\nMight startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n