COLERIDGE'S

DEJECTION; AN ODE

Coleridge as a Poet

Coleridge (1772-1834) was both a poet and a critic. He was a close associate of Wordsworth and holds a premier position in the literature of Romantic Movement. Coleridge possesses the most vigorous mind among the English Romanticists of the first generation. But his works, his life and his thoughts are marked by an unhappy fate. Unable to cope with intellectual and artistic ambition, being a slave to opium, he scarcely completed any of his undertakings.

He collaborated with Wordsworth in the publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798) which announces the commencement of a new age in the history of English literature. With Wordsworth, when Coleridge wrote poems for the Lyrical Ballads, he earmarked the supernatural as his field and undertook to humanise and familiarise it. His aim was to make the supernatural appear natural. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Kubla Khan are poems written in this genre and by virtue of these poems he is regarded as the greatest poet of the supernatural.

Coleridge, like Wordsworth, was a great admirer of nature and his attitude towards it was influenced by the pantheistic philosophy of Wordsworth. His poems like The Eolian Harp and Frost at Midnight contain Wordsworthian view of nature. However later in his life he changed his attitude to Nature and expressed that we interpret the moods of Nature according to our own moods. We receive from nature only that which we give to it and in our life alone does nature live. This belief finds utterance in Dejection- An Ode.

Coleridge's talent to write narrative poetry finds expression in The Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Love. These poems have a medieval background. Coleridge was essentially a medievalist. There is a meditative note also in his poetry. He was reflective and speculative in temper. This temper is reflected in poems like Frost at Midnight, Dejection-An Ode etc.

To sum up Coleridge's poetic genius we may quote Stopford Brooks: "His best work is but little, but unique of its kind. All that he did excellently might be bound up in twenty pages but it should be bound up in pure gold." To his four dream poems, i.e The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan and Love, if we add three more namely Dejection-An Ode, France-An Ode and Frost at Midnight we will realise the peculiar charm of Coleridge's magic verse.

THE POEM

Introduction

In the winter of 1801-02. the two causes of Coleridge's unhappiness, opium and domestic discord, worked havoc with him and brought him to despair. His creative imagination went awry while Wordsworth was at the height of his poetic activity. On April 4, 1802 when Wordsworth and Dorothy visited him, Coleridge composed,, atleast in part, the poem Dejection - An Ode which is a confession of his failure and one of the saddest poems of English literature. Meanwhile the poem is glorious also in its attitude when the stricken runner who sinks in the race lifts up his head and cheers the friend who strides onwards.

On October 4, 1802 the poem appeared in the Morning Post. The poem is an ode in its form only and in its contents it is a conversation. In stead of being addressed to Dejection it is addressed to William Wordsworth. In the printed newspaper form it purports to be directed to someone named Edmund. In Coleridge's edition of his collected works it is addressed to Lady; but in the three extant manuscripts the word is sometimes William and sometimes Wordsworth.

In this sublime poem Coleridge gives expression to an experience of double consciousness. His sense perceptions are vivid and agreeable; his inner state is faint, blurred and unhappy. He sees but cannot feel. His power of feeling has been paralysed by chemically induced excitement of his brain. The power 'to see' stands aloof, individual, critical and very mournful. By 'seeing' he means perceiving and judging; by 'feeling' he means that which impels action. He suffers, but the pain is dull, and he wishes it were keen, for so he should awoke from lethargy and recover unity atleast. But nothing from outside can restore him. The sources of soul's life are within. Even from the depths of his humiliation and self loathing he rebukes his friend for thinking it can be otherwise.

O William! we receive but what we give
And in our life alone does nature live.

In every other respect, Coleridge praises Wordsworth and humbles himself before him. Wordsworth has not lost the birth right of joy but Coleridge groans that 'I have lost my gift of song.'
Suspends what Nature gave me at my birth
My shaping spirit of imagination

His own race ends prematurely and he passes the torch to the survivor:

Dear William, friend devoutest of my choice
Thus may'st thou ever more rejoice!

Critical Summary

The poet sees the old moon in the lap of the new and this, according to an old belief, foretells the coming of rain and a furious storm. In a few moments the wind actually develops into a storm and rain starts falling with a loud sound. The sounds of rain and storm have often in the past raised the poet's spirits though at the same time they filled him with awe. He welcomes the rain and the storm now because it is possible that their sounds might awaken his dull pain and make it move and live.

The poet then describes the kind of grief that has been weighing upon his heart. It is dark, drear, drowsy and unimpassioned grief. Although the poet has been gazing at the western sky and its peculiar hue of yellow green throughout the peaceful and balmy evening, he has been in a cheerless and spiritless mood. He has watched the beauty of the clouds and the stars but he has not been able to feel that beauty because of the grief that has taken a firm hold on his mind. The poet laments of all happiness and joy in his life. His spirits are drooping. All the beautiful objects of nature are unable to remove the overwhelming weight of this grief from the heart. It is not from external objects that happiness can flow to a man's heart. The heart itself is the real source of animation and excitement. When this inner source of animation and excitement had dried up, a man cannot expect to experience these feelings by gazing at the beauty of external objects.

Addressing his wife Sara ('Lady'-- originally the poem was addressed to William Wordsworth) the poet says that we get from nature what we give to it. Nature seems to be full of life because we ourselves endow it with life. In our life alone does nature live. If we find nature to be in a joyful or festive mood, it is because we are ourselves in that mood. If we find nature in a mood of mourning it is because we are ourselves in that mood. The objects of nature themselves are cold and lifeless. If we want to see anything noble or sublime in nature, our own souls must send forth a light, a lustre, or a radiance to envelope the objects of nature. Our own soul must send forth a sweet and potent voice which will endow the sounds of nature with sweetness and power. This light and this glory which our souls can send forth is not only beautiful in itself but it enables us to create beautiful things also. The source of this glory or light is joy in the heart. This joy is given by nature to pure hearted persons only. All the sweet sounds that delight the ear and all the beautiful sights that delight the eyes, flow from the joy in our hearts. All music is an echo of that sweet voice, the source of which is joy in our hearts, and all beautiful paintings are a reflection of the light which flows from the joy in our hearts. The poet recalls the time in his past life when, though there were difficulties in his way, the joy in his heart enabled him to make light of his distress. In those days even his misfortunes served as material for his fancy to weave visions of delight. That was the time of hopefulness. But now the sorrows of life have crushed him. But it is not the loss of his joy that makes him sad. What grieves him is the decline and the weakening of his inborn gift of the creative power of imagination. His mind is now chiefly occupied with metaphysical speculation which tends to suppress his poetic imagination. Metaphysical thinking has taken almost complete possession of his soul and is crushing his poetic powers.

The poet then dismisses the depressing thoughts that have been haunting his mind and turns his attention to the storm that has been raging outside. Hearing the sound produced by the wind blowing against the strings of the lute, he feels that it is like the prolonged scream of a human being who is being tortured and who cries in his agony. He thinks that it would have been much better if the wind, instead of playing upon the lute, were to blow against bare rock, a mountain lake, a lightning struck tree, a high pine grove, or a lonely house haunted by evil spirit. It seems to him that the wind is celebrating a devil's Christmas. He addresses the wind as an actor and as a mighty poet who can reproduce all kinds of tragic sounds. The sounds that the wind is producing are compared by the poet to those produced by the panicky retreat of a defeated army and to the cries of pain uttered by trampled men groaning in their pain and shuddering with cold. Then there is a pause, a brief interval of deep silence. This pause is followed again by sounds which are this time less deep and less loud than before. These sounds are compared by the poet to the pathetic poem written by Thomas Otway about a lost child sometimes crying in bitter grief and fear and sometimes screaming aloud in the hope that its mother would come to its rescue.

It is midnight, says the poet but there seems to be little possibility of his falling asleep. He would not like his beloved wife to have such an experience of sleeplessness. He would like her to enjoy a sound sleep and to forget her worries. He ends the poem with a prayer for her happiness and joy.

Critical Appreciation

Written in 1802, this poem is Coleridge's Swan Song. It pathetically mourns his spiritual and moral losses. It is a deeply personal and autobiographical poem conveying his mental state at the time. It records a fundamental change in his life and is a lament on the decline of his creative imagination

Coleridge felt that his inborn gift of imagination was decaying and that his interest was shifting to philosophy. In other words, he found that he was becoming more and more a philosopher or thinker or less and less of a poet. This change greatly distressed him. He was grief stricken at the thought that his interest in abstruse research was crushing his poetic talent. The poem is an expression of that grief:

"A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief

Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear ---"

Seldom has grief found such tragic expression as in this poem which has been called "the poet's dirge of infinite pathos over the grave of creative imagination". The poem proceeds with an ever deepening sadness, each stanza charged with heavy gloom.

A very important point about this poem is that Coleridge here contradicts his own previous view of nature, thus challenging Wordsworth's nature-creed also. In The Eolian Harp and Frost at Midnight, Coleridge had expressed a belief in pantheism-- the view that nature is a living whole, that a divine spirit passes through all objects of nature, that man can establish a spiritual intercourse with nature, and that nature exercises an enabling and educative influence upon man. But in this poem, Coleridge completely denies this belief. He asserts that Nature has no life of her own-- that it is we who attributed life to her:

"O Lady! We receive but what we give

And in our life alone does Nature live:

Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud."

No longer can Coleridge gain from nature the joy she used to give him because he has no joy in his heart to meet her half way. He has discovered that nature can give no joy to those who have no joy already in their hearts.

"Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power

which wedding Nature to us gives in dower"

The ode contains some very vivid and concrete imagery. The poet sees the new moon winter bright with the old moon in her lap; the swelling storm with night shower falling loud and fast; the stars gliding between or behind the stars:

"I see the old Moon in her lap foretelling

The coming on of rain and squally blast.

And oh! that even now the gusts are swelling,

And the slant night shower driving loud and fast!"

More vigorous and forceful images are found in the lines where the sounds of the storm are compared first to the rushing of a defeated army with groans of trampled and wounded men and then to the alternate moaning and screaming of a frightened child who has lost its way home:

"What tell'st thou now about?

'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout,

with groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds---

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with cold!"

and

"'Tis of a little child

upon a lonesome wild

Not far from home, but she hath lost her way;

And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear."

These are not the only pictures in the poem. We have also the images of the storm raging over a rock or a tree, a pine grove or a haunted house and of its celebrating the Devil's Christmas in the month of showers, of dark brown gardens and of peeping flowers.

The poem ends on a note of tenderness for his wife. He prays to sleep to visit his beloved. May she rise with light heart, gay fancy, cheerful eyes!

Interesting comparisons and contrasts occur between this poem and Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality. As in Wordsworth's poem, we have here the poet's reference to his past joy and a description of his present mood of grief. There was a time when even misfortunes had an aspect of happiness, but now "afflictions bow me down to earth." These lines also remind similar lines in Shelley's Ode to the West Wind:

"If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven

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I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

In Wordsworth's Ode, grief finds relief and ends in joy; in Dejection- an Ode grief finds no relief and ends in despair. It is morning in Wordsworth's ode, midnight in Coleridge's. In the former it is May and the sun shines warm; in the latter it is the month of showers. Wordsworth hears the happy shouts of children; Coleridge hears the wind screaming in agony. Like Wordsworth" ode, this one is irregular in structure and stanza formation.

Paraphrase

Stanza 1 (Lines 1-20)

Well! If the poet, who wrote the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, was correct in his forecast of weather, this night, which is so calm at this time, will not pass without being distributed by winds which are more active than those which have broken up that cloud into slow moving fragments or than the dull, melancholic, breeze which is producing mournful sounds and which gently touches the strings of this lute on which the god of wind is playing and which should have been silent. For behold! the new moon is wintry bright. It is covered by a pale ghostly light which seems to be floating over it. But the moon has an edge of a silvery colour all around it. I see the old moon in the lap of the new, and it foretells the coming of rain and storm which will blow furiously. And oh! already is the wind developing into a storm and rain has started falling in a slanting direction. The rain drops are falling rapidly and are producing a loud sound. The sounds of the rain and storm have often raised my spirits in the past, though at the same time they created a terrifying impression on me and send my mind wandering out of doors. It is possible that these sounds might produce in me their customary thrill. They might awaken this pain which benumbs me and might lend some movement to it.

Stanza 11 (Lines 21-38)

Mine is a grief which does not cause any piercing sensation. It is empty, thick and dull. It is a suppressed, sleepy kind of grief that causes no excitement and that finds no natural outlet or relief in words, or sighs or tears. O Lady! I have been gazing on the western sky and its peculiar hue of yellow green throughout this evening which was so peaceful and sweet, and I have been in a cheerless and spiritless mood. The song of the throstle singing over there has been inducing in me thoughts of other things. And I am still gazing and I am doing so with a perfectly vacant eye. I am gazing at those thin clouds which appear in fragments and which here and there, look like parallel lines. Although it is the clouds that are moving, it seems that the stars behind them are in motion. The stars appear to be floating behind clouds and sometimes between clouds. When the stars are not screened by the clouds, they look bright; when the clouds cover them, their light becomes dim, but they continue to be visible even then. The thin semi circular moon over there seems to be fixed, as if it has its root in that portion of the blue sky where there are neither clouds nor stars. I see all these objects of Nature looking so beautiful and lovely. But although I see their beauty, I dont feel it (because my heart is in the grip of a grief which has rendered me completely cheerless and spiritless).

Stanza 111 (Lines 39-46)

I have lost all happiness and joy and my spirits are now drooping. All the beautiful objects of nature are unable to remove the overwhelming weight of grief from my heart. Even if I were to keep gazing for ever at the beautiful green light that seems to stay on in the Western sky, it would be a futile effort because I would not draw any comfort from it. The heart itself is the real source of excitement and animation. When the inner source of excitement and animation has dried up, I can not expect to experience these feelings by gazing at the beauty of the external objects.

Stanza 1v (Lines 47-58)

O Lady! We get from nature what we have transferred to it from our own hearts. Nature seems to be full of life, because we endow it with our own life. If we find nature in a joyful and festive mood, it is because we are ourselves in that mood. The objects of nature are cold and lifeless. If the poor, lifeless, careworn people of the world want to see anything of a high or noble quality in nature, their own soul must send forth a sweet and powerful voice which will endow the sounds of nature with sweetness.

Stanza v (Lines 59-75)

O pure hearted Lady! You need not ask me what the nature of this sweet and powerful voice in the soul is. Nor is it necessary to for you to ask me what the nature of this light, this lustre, and this radiance is and in what it has its existence. This light or this glory is not only beautiful in itself but it enables a man to create beautiful things. The sources of this light or glory, O pure hearted Lady! is joy in the heart. This joy is given by nature to no one except to the pure hearted people in their purest moments of life. It is the essence of life and issues forth from the vitality of human being. Only the purest hearted people are the recipients of this unique gift if nature, namely joy. This joy enables them to see a new earth and a new heaven which the vulgar and proud persons cannot even dream of. Joy is the source of that sweet voice; joy is the souce of that bright light. It is because of the joy in our own hearts that we feel happy. All the sweet sounds that delight the ear and all the beautiful sights which delight the eyes flow from that joy in our hearts. All music is an echo of that sweet voice (the source of which is the joy in our hearts) and all beautiful paintings are a reflection of that light (which flows from the joy in our hearts).

Stanza v1 (Lines 76-93)

There was a time when, though there were difficulties in my way, the joy in my heart enabled me to make light of my suffering. In those days, even my misfortunes served merely as material for my fancy to weave visions of delight. That was the time when hope grew around me like a climbing plant growing around a tree. The pleasure even of hopes which did not belong to me seemed in those days to be my own (just as the leaves and fruits of a plant growing around a tree seem to belong to the tree itself). But now the sorrows of life have crushed me and brought me from the upper regions down to the earth. Nor do I feel sorry that these misfortunes deprive me of my joy. But what grieves me is that each fit of depression renders my inborn gift of the creative power of imagination inoperative. All that I can do now is to remain silent and patient under the stress of my incapacity to give poetic expression to my deepest feelings. The gift of poetic imagination with which I was endowed by nature is being suppressed by my philosophical and metaphysical tendencies. The gift of poetic imagination was my only treasure in life, the only quality on which my life was based. But my metaphysical tendencies which were only a part of my mental make up have weakened and crushed my real nature which was poetically constituted. Now metaphysical thinking has taken almost complete possession of my soul and become a habit of the mind.

Stanza v11 (Lines 94-125)

O poisonous thoughts which have enveloped my mind and which are like a fearful dream of reality! I dismiss you. I turn my attention from you and listen to the wind which has been raging without my having taken any notice of it. The sound produced by the wind striking the strings of the lute is like the prolong scream of a human being who is being tortured and who cries in his agony. You wind, who are blowing furiously outside, it would be much better if you, instead of playing upon the lute, were to blow against a bare rock, a mountain lake, a lightning struck tree, a high pine grove which no woodman has ever set foot, or a lonely house which has long been believed to be haunted by evil spirits. You are a reckless musician playing upon the lute. The sounds that you are producing are worse than those which are heard during the bleak months of winter. It seems as if you are celebrating a devil's Christmas among the blossoms, buds and tremulous leaves in this rainy season when the garden looks dark brown and the flower peep from behind the leaves. You are an actor, able to reproduce fully all sounds of pain and suffering. You are like a powerful poet. You can blow with great fury, thus emulating a frenzied poet. What sounds are you producing now? You are producing sounds similar to those produced by the panicky retreat of a defeated army, with cries of pain of trampled men with painful wounds, groaning in pain and at the same time shuddering with cold. But now there is a pause. There is a brief interval of the deepest possible silence. All that noise similar to the sounds of retreating army, with the groans, trembling and shuddering of trampled soldiers, has ended. Now the wind produces different sounds, sounds which are less deep and less loud, and which express less of fear and something of delight. These sounds are like the pathetic poem written by Thomas Otway about a lost girl roaming about on a lonely stretch of territory, not far from home. The wind produces sometimes sounds of bitter grief and fear and sometimes it screams aloud like that lost girl who hoped that her mother would hear her cries and come to her rescue.

Stanza v111 (Lines 126-139)

It is midnight, but I have almost no thought of sleeping. May my friend have such experiences of sleeplessness only rarely! May soothing sleep descend upon her and make her forget her worries! May this storm be only a kind of mountain birth! May all the stars shine brightly above her house and continue shining in silence as if they were watching the sleeping earth! May she get up from bed with a care free heart! May she feel happy and bright and may her eyes express a cheerful mood! May her spirits be raised by joy and may her voice be sweetened with happiness! May all living creatures from one end of the world to the other dedicate their existence to her! May their existence become a vital force to add to the energy of her spirit! O dear and simple hearted Lady! May you be guided by heaven! You are the most faithful friend of my choice. May you feel happy for ever and ever!