Book 2 — LIMBO[429:2]
Reading edition
LIMBO[429:2]
* * * * * The sole true Something—This! In Limbo's Den It frightens Ghosts, as here Ghosts frighten men. Thence cross'd unseiz'd—and shall some fated hour Be pulveris'd by Demogorgon's power, And given as poison to annihilate souls— 5 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. 10 'Tis a strange place, this Limbo!—not a Place, Yet name it so;—where Time and weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing, Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;— Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands 15 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, 20 That stops his earthly task to watch the skies; But he is blind—a Statue hath such eyes;— Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance, Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance, With scant white hairs, with foretop bald and high, 25 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! 30 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, 35 Yet that is but a Purgatory curse; Hell knows a fear far worse, A fear—a future state;—'tis positive Negation!
1817.
FOOTNOTES:
LINENOTES:
Title] Another Fragment, but in a very different style, from a Dream of Purgatory, alias Limbus MS. S. T. C. [Note.—In this MS. Phantom, 'All Look and Likeness,' &c. precedes Limbo.]
Between 2-3:
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 cross'd the Acheron, Styx, and with Periphlegeton Cocytus,— (The very names, methinks, might frighten us) Unchang'd it cross'd—and shall some fated hour
MS. Notebook.
[Coleridge marks these lines as 'a specimen of the Sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery Four-in-Hand round the corner of Nonsense.']
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They, like moles Friend, 1818.
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Shrink from the light, then listen for a sound Friend, 1818.
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so] such MS. S. T. C.
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the] his MS. S. T. C.
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Mark'd but by Flit MS. S. T. C.
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at] on MS. S. T. C.
31 foll.
In one sole Outlet yawns the Phantom Wall, And through this grim road to [a] worser thrall Oft homeward scouring from a sick Child's dream Old Mother Brownrigg shoots upon a scream; And turning back her Face with hideous Leer, Leaves Sentry there Intolerable Fear! A horrid thought is growthless dull Negation: Yet that is but a Purgatory Curse, She knows a fear far worse Flee, lest thou hear its Name! Flee, rash Imagination!
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S. T. Coleridge, 1st Oct. 1827, Grove, Highgate.