l surprise and mortification,
that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the
general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or
ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the
images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but,
alas! without the after restoration of the latter!"

Opinion will ever vary as to its poetic worth. Coleridge himself
professed to consider it "rather as a psychological curiosity" than as a
thing "of any supposed _poetic_ merits"; to Lamb he repeated it "so
enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian bowers
into any parlour when he sings or says it," and it has been a sort of
touchstone of romantic taste ever since. It supremely illustrates that
"sense of musical delight, with the power of producing it," which the
poet declared to be a gift of the imagination that can never be learnt.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See notes to this poem in the Globe edition, and E.H.
Coleridge's "Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge," Vol. I, p. 245, note.]

"FRANCE: AN ODE"

This ode was written in February, 1798, and first printed in the
"Morning Post" for April 16 of that year, under the significant title of
"Recantation." In the autumn it was printed with its present title in a
pamphlet together with "Fears in Solitude," another political poem, and
"Frost at Midnight," a poem on his infant child. In October, 1802, it
was reprinted in the "Post" with a prose "Argument" (see notes), less
necessary for the readers of that time than it may be now. Coleridge,
like Wordsworth, had welcomed the French Revolution as ushering in an
era of light and love in human society; both, though Wordsworth more
profoundly, had been depressed by the excesses of 1793-4, and by the
lust of conquest which became more and more evident under the Directory;
and when at last in February, 1798, the French armies invaded
Switzerland, the ancient sacred home of liberty in Europe, Coleridge
"recanted" in this ode.

Political poetry is likely to lose its power with the passing of the
events and passions that give it birth; it retains its power just in
proportion as it is built on lasting and universal interests of the
heart of man. That "France" has retained its position as one of the
great odes of the English language is due not only to the loftiness of
its thought and the splendor of its imagery, but even more to the fact
that