An Expunged Stanza.
For m«iny years during tbe lifttinie of the poet Longfellow there was upon the round table in his study, among many other valued mementoes, an original edition of Coleridge's Poems, containing " The Eimo of the Ancient Mariner." Whils showing me some of these curiosities one day, Me. Longfellow read fiom this volume the following thrilling stanza (the look, the tone, tho impression it made upon me, I shall not forget) : " A gu3t of wind storto up behind, And. whistled thr' hia bones, Thro, the holed of his eyes and the hole of his mouth Half whistles and half groans." It ia not strange that when Coleridge saw it m print, ho should take thd pencil, cross it, Rod writo in the margin of toia volume, as he did, "To be struck out. S. T. C." It does not appear in subsequent editions. It was in Part 111., and came ju3t after the stanza : " The nak^d hulk alongside came, And the twain were plajing cLce ; •The game ia donel I've won, I've won I 1I 1 Quoth she, and whistles thrice ;" and before the one beginning : " Tho sans rim dip 3 ; the stars rush out ; At one chide oomes the dark." There are some interesting items concern- i ing tho way in which thi3 poem came to be written. Morley and Tyler's M"'tual of English Literature Eay3 : "In tha Autumn of 1797, Coleridge, with Wordsworth and hia sister, started from Alfoxden for Liuton, and in the course of the walk ' The Ancient Mari- , ncr ' was planned as a poeui to be sent to tho London Magazine, and bring five pounds towards expenses of the little holiday. Colerigc made the little etory out of a dream of his friend Mr. Cruikshauk. Word.sworth sug Rested introducing into it the crime of 6hootidg the albatross, because he had been reading about albatrosses in Shelcocke's Voyage Round the World. Wordswoith also suggested the navigation of the ship by dead men, and furnished here and theie a line." And Oliver Wendell Holmes stated that Wordsworth i? credited with furnishing him with the whole of the first etanza in Part i IV. : " I fsar thee, Ancient Mariner 1 I fear thy skinny hand ; And thou art long and lank and brown As is the ribbed sea sand." E. 11. Goss.
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Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2081, 7 November 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)
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386An Expunged Stanza. Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2081, 7 November 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)
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