42 PA RT O N E
a sight as a Father’s eyes could well see—Hartley & little Derwent running
in the Green where the Gusts blow most madly—both with their hair floating
& tossing, a miniature of the agitated Trees below which they were playing
inebriate both with the pleasure—Hartley whirling round for joy, Derwent
eddying half-willingly, half by the force of the Gust—driven backward, strug-
gling forward, & shouting his little hymn of Joy.Thirteen times “and... and... and... ,” and verbs galore, throng the canvas
with movement and underlined light till these creatures look Pan-like, Dio-
nysian—running, floating, tossing, playing, whirling, eddying, struggling,
shouting. Calling them “a miniature of the agitated trees” gets a wild organic
at-oneness fresher than any doctrine that nature lives “in our life alone.” “Der-
went eddying, half-willingly, half by the force of the gust” seems giver and
receiver both. The children whirl and shout for joy. Coleridge can’t do without
that word, especially since an illness kept dogging him, and pain addicting him
to opium.
Within a few days of this 1802 letter, still “wedding Nature to us,” he wrote
a short poem that can stand at the center of his work. It has everything: tree
and fountainhead, breath and music, gale and quiet, infant and pilgrim, toil
and refreshment. Also it blends the ingredients of his craft: rhythm and meter,
diction and verbal music, grammar and phrasing, imagery and voice. Like any
poem, this “inscription” gains from being spoken aloud.
Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath
This Sycamore, oft musical with bees,—
Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed
May all its agèd boughs o’er-canopy
The small round basin, which this jutting stone
Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring,
Quietly as a sleeping infant ’s breath,
Send up cold waters to the traveller
With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,
Which at the bottom, like a Fairy’s Page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount.
Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou may’st toil far and find no second tree.
Drink, Pilgrim, here; here rest! and if thy heart
Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound,
Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!