Home ⇒ 📌Samuel Coleridge ⇒ Limbo
Limbo
The sole true Something This! In Limbo Den
It frightens Ghosts as Ghosts here frighten men
For skimming in the wake it mock’d the care
Of the old Boat-God for his Farthing Fare ;
Tho’ Irus’ Ghost itself he ne’er frown’d blacker on,
The skin and skin-pent Druggist crost the Acheron,
Styx, and with Puriphlegethon Cocytus,
(The very names, methinks, might thither fright us )
Unchang’d it cross’d & shall some fated Hour
Be pulveris’d by Demogorgon’s power
And given as poison to annilate Souls
Even now It shrinks them! they shrink in as Moles
(Nature’s mute Monks, live Mandrakes of the ground)
Creep back from Light then listen for its Sound ;
See but to dread, and dread they know not why
The natural Alien of their negative Eye.
‘Tis a strange place, this Limbo! not a Place,
Yet name it so ; where Time & weary Space
Fettered from flight, with night-mair sense of fleeing,
Strive for their last crepuscular half-being ;
Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands
Barren and soundless as the measuring sands,
Not mark’d by flit of Shades, unmeaning they
As Moonlight on the dial of the day!
But that is lovely looks like Human Time,
An Old Man with a steady Look sublime,
That stops his earthly Task to watch the skies ;
But he is blind a Statue hath such Eyes ;
Yet having moon-ward turn’d his face by chance,
Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,
With scant white hairs, with foretop bald & high,
He gazes still, his eyeless Face all Eye ;
As ’twere an organ full of silent Sight,
His whole Face seemeth to rejoice in Light!
Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb,
He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him!
No such sweet sights doth Limbo Den immure,
Wall’d round, and made a Spirit-jail secure,
By the mere Horror of blank Naught-at-all,
Whose circumambience doth these Ghosts enthral.
A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,
Yet that is but a Purgatory curse ;
Hell knows a fear far worse,
A fear a future fate. ‘Tis positive Negation!
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- Limbo Fishermen at Ballyshannon Netted an infant last night Along with the salmon. An illegitimate spawning, A small one thrown back To the waters. But I’m sure As she stood in the shallows Ducking him tenderly Till the frozen knobs of her wrists Were dead as the gravel, He was a minnow with hooks Tearing her […]...
- Helen all Alone “In the Same Boat” A Diversity of Creatures There was darkness under Heaven For an hour’s space Darkness that we knew was given Us for special grace. Sun and noon and stars were hid, God had left His Throne, When Helen came to me, she did, Helen all alone! Side by side (because our fate […]...
- Look not in my eyes, for fear Look not in my eyes, for fear Thy mirror true the sight I see, And there you find your face too clear And love it and be lost like me. One the long nights through must lie Spent in star-defeated sighs, But why should you as well as I Perish? gaze not in my eyes. […]...
- Letter to My Lover After Seven Years You gave me the child That seamed my belly & stitched up my life. You gave me: one book of love poems, Five years of peace & two of pain. You gave me darkness, light, laughter & the certain knowledge That we someday die. You gave me seven years During which the cells of my […]...
- At Night On The High Seas At night, when the sea cradles me And the pale star gleam Lies down on its broad waves, Then I free myself wholly From all activity and all the love And stand silent and breathe purely, Alone, alone cradled by the sea That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights. Then I have […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 02: 01: The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea. The walls and towers are warmed and gleam. Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves. The city stirs like one that is half in dream. And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows, Where one by one we wake and rise. We […]...
- Ghosts Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who come, moving their useless arms Like forsaken servants. Not all ghosts are women, I have seen others; Fat, white-bellied men, Wearing their genitals like old rags. Not devils, but ghosts. This one thumps barefoot, lurching […]...
- The Moon Beautiful Moon, with thy silvery light, Thou seemest most charming to my sight; As I gaze upon thee in the sky so high, A tear of joy does moisten mine eye. Beautiful Moon, with thy silvery light, Thou cheerest the Esquimau in the night; For thou lettest him see to harpoon the fish, And with […]...
- Sonnet LIII THe Panther knowing that his spotted hyde, Doth please all beasts but that his looks the[m] fray: Within a bush his dreadfull head doth hide, To let them gaze whylest he on them may pray. Right so my cruell fayre with me doth play, For with the goodly semblant of her hew: She doth allure […]...
- Everything That Acts Is Actual From the tawny light From the rainy nights From the imagination finding Itself and more than itself Alone and more than alone At the bottom of the well where the moon lives, Can you pull me Into December? a lowland Of space, perception of space Towering of shadows of clouds blown upon Clouds over new […]...
- The Moon, how definite its orb! (fragment) The Moon, how definite its orb! Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze ‘Tis there indeed, but where is it not? It is suffused o’er all the sapphire Heaven, Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake, Whose very murmur does of it partake And low and close the broad smooth mountain Is more a thing […]...
- The Quality of Mercy The quality of mercy is not strain’d. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The […]...
- HERODIAS Daughter presenting to her Mother St. JOHN's Head in a Charger, also Painted by her self BEhold, dear Mother, who was late our Fear, Disarm’d and Harmless, I present you here; The Tongue ty’d up, that made all Jury quake, And which so often did our Greatness shake; No Terror sits upon his Awful Brow, Where Fierceness reign’d, there Calmness triumphs now; As Lovers use, he gazes on my Face, With […]...
- Elegy VIII: The Comparison As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, As that which from chafed musk-cats’ pores doth trill, As the almighty balm of th’ early East, Such are the sweat drops of my mistress’ breast, And on her brow her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets. Rank sweaty froth […]...
- This Night This night, as I sit here alone, And brood on what is dead and gone, The owl that’s in this Highgate Wood, Has found his fellow in my mood; To every star, as it doth rise – Oh-o-o! Oh-o-o! he shivering cries. And, looking at the Moon this night, There’s that dark shadow in her […]...
- Villonaud for This Yule Towards the Noel that morte saison (Christ make the shepherds’ homage dear!) Then when the grey wolves everychone Drink of the winds their chill small-beer And lap o’ the snows food’s gueredon Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer (Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!) Wineing the ghosts of yester-year. Ask ye […]...
- Song. A Beautiful Mistress IF when the sun at noon displays His brighter rays, Thou but appear, He then, all pale with shame and fear, Quencheth his light, Hides his dark brow, flies from thy sight, And grows more dim, Compared to thee, than stars to him. If thou but show thy face again, When darkness doth at midnight […]...
- The Imperfect Lover I never asked you to be perfect-did I?- Though often I’ve called you sweet, in the invasion Of mastering love. I never prayed that you Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman, Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post. Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. We found the little kingdom of […]...
- I Know, You Walk I walk so often, late, along the streets, Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread, Suddenly, silently, you still might rise And I would have to gaze on all your grief With my own eyes, While you demand your happiness, that’s dead. I know, you walk beyond me, every night, With a coy footfall, […]...
- Sonnet XLIII: While From the Dizzy Precipice While from the dizzy precipice I gaze, The world receding from my pensive eyes, High o’er my head the tyrant eagle flies, Cloth’d in the sinking sun’s transcendent blaze! The meek-ey’d moon, ‘midst clouds of amber plays As o’er the purpling plains of light she hies, Till the last stream of living lustre dies, And […]...
- The Phantom Horsewoman Queer are the ways of a man I know: He comes and stands In a careworn craze, And looks at the sands And in the seaward haze With moveless hands And face and gaze, Then turns to go… And what does he see when he gazes so? They say he sees as an instant thing […]...
- A Process In The Weather Of The Heart A process in the weather of the heart Turns damp to dry; the golden shot Storms in the freezing tomb. A weather in the quarter of the veins Turns night to day; blood in their suns Lights up the living worm. A process in the eye forwarns The bones of blindness; and the womb Drives […]...
- The Heart of Night When all the stars are sown Across the night-blue space, With the immense unknown, In silence face to face. We stand in speechless awe While Beauty marches by, And wonder at the Law Which wears such majesty. How small a thing is man In all that world-sown vast, That he should hope or plan Or […]...
- Sonnet XIV IT may be for the world of weeds and tares And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty’s rose That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows One from the train of Love’s true courtiers Straightway on him who gazes, unawares, Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows, Reft by that sight of purpose and repose, […]...
- Sonnet XXI WAs it the worke of nature or of Art? Which tempred so the feature of her face: That pride and meeknesse mixt by equall part, Doe both appeare t’adorne her beauties grace. For with mild pleasance, which doth pride displace, She to her loues doth lookers eyes allure: & with sterne countenance back again doth […]...
- Early Moon THE BABY moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west. A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon. One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers. O foxes, baby […]...
- To the Moon Oh gracious moon, now as the year turns, I remember how, heavy with sorrow, I climbed this hill to gaze on you, And then as now you hung above those trees Illuminating all. But to my eyes Your face seemed clouded, temulous From the tears that rose beneath my lids, So painful was my life: […]...
- Ode to Pity 1 Ever musing I delight to tread The Paths of honour and the Myrtle Grove Whilst the pale Moon her beams doth shed On disappointed Love. While Philomel on airy hawthorn Bush Sings sweet and Melancholy, And the thrush Converses with the Dove. 2 Gently brawling down the turnpike road, Sweetly noisy falls the Silent […]...
- Ghosts in Love “Tell me, where do ghosts in love Find their bridal veils?” “If you and I were ghosts in love We’d climb the cliffs of Mystery, Above the sea of Wails. I’d trim your gray and streaming hair With veils of Fantasy From the tree of Memory. ‘Tis there the ghosts that fall in love Find […]...
- To My Brother Give me your hand, my brother, search my face; Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame; For we have made an end of all things base. We are returning by the road we came. Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead, And I am in the field where men must […]...
- Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself Tell, if thou canst, and truly, whence doth come This camphire, storax, spikenard, galbanum, These musks, these ambers, and those other smells Sweet as the Vestry of the Oracles. I’ll tell thee:-while my Julia did unlace Her silken bodice but a breathing space, The passive air such odour then assumed As when to Jove great […]...
- THE YUKON THE moon resumed all heaven now, She shepherded the stars below Along her wide, white steeps of snow, Nor stooped nor rested, where or how. She bared her full white breast, she dared The sun e’er show his face again. She seemed to know no change, she kept Carousal constantly, nor slept, Nor turned aside […]...
- The Masked Face I found me in a great surging space, At either end a door, And I said: “What is this giddying place, With no firm-fixéd floor, That I knew not of before?” “It is Life,” said a mask-clad face. I asked: “But how do I come here, Who never wished to come; Can the light and […]...
- It's Ours there is always that space there Just before they get to us That space That fine relaxer The breather While say Flopping on a bed Thinking of nothing Or say Pouring a glass of water from the Spigot While entranced by Nothing That Gentle pure Space It’s worth Centuries of Existence Say Just to scratch […]...
- I Know My Soul I plucked my soul out of its secret place, And held it to the mirror of my eye, To see it like a star against the sky, A twitching body quivering in space, A spark of passion shining on my face. And I explored it to determine why This awful key to my infinity Conspires […]...
- Seven Strophes I was but what you’d brush With your palm, what your leaning Brow would hunch to in evening’s Raven-black hush. I was but what your gaze In that dark could distinguish: A dim shape to begin with, Later – features, a face. It was you, on my right, On my left, with your heated Sighs, […]...
- My Mother On An Evening In Late Summer 1 When the moon appears And a few wind-stricken barns stand out In the low-domed hills And shine with a light That is veiled and dust-filled And that floats upon the fields, My mother, with her hair in a bun, Her face in shadow, and the smoke From their cigarette coiling close To the faint […]...
- Wedding Each strips his own skin Each bares his own constellation Which has never seen the night Each fills his skin with rocks And plays with it Lit by his own stars Who doesn’t stop till dawn Who doesn’t bat an eyelid or fall Earns his own skin (This game is rarely played)...
- A Form Of Women I have come far enough From where I was not before To have seen the things Looking in at me from through the open door And have walked tonight By myself To see the moonlight And see it as trees And shapes more fearful Because I feared What I did not know But have wanted […]...
- What Birds Plunge Through Is Not The Intimate Space What birds plunge through is not the intimate space, In which you see all Forms intensified. (In the Open, denied, you would lose yourself, Would disappear into that vastness.) Space reaches from us and translates Things: To become the very essence of a tree, Throw inner space around it, from that space That lives in […]...