ich popular superstition
interprets into omens? Was the malignant influence which Geraldine
exerted over the maiden supernatural possession, or the fascination of
terror and repugnance? Did she really utter the words of a charm, or did
her sweet bedfellow dream them? And once more, what was that upon her
breast--"that bosom old--that bosom cold"? Was it a wound, or the mark
of a serpent, or some foul and hideous disfigurement--or was it only the
shadows cast by the swinging lamp?

That isolation and remoteness, that preparation of the reader's mind for
the reception of incredible things, which Coleridge secured in "The
Ancient Mariner" by cutting off his hero from all human life amid the
solitude of the tropic sea, he here secured--in a less degree, to be
sure--by the lonely midnight in Sir Leoline's castle. Geraldine and her
victim are the only beings awake except the hooting owls. There is dim
moonlight in the wood, dim firelight in the hall, and in Christabel's
chamber "the silver lamp burns dead and dim."

The second part of the poem was less successful, partly for the reason,
as the reviewers pointed out, that it undertakes the hardest of tasks,
"witchery by daylight." But there were other reasons. Three years had
passed since the poem was begun. Coleridge had been to Germany and had
settled at Keswick. The poet had been lost in the metaphysician, and he
took up his interrupted task without inspiration, putting force upon
himself. The signs of effort are everywhere visible, and it is painfully
manifest that the poet cannot recover the genial, creative mood in which
he had set out. In particular it is observable that, while there is no
mention of place in the first part, now we have frequent references to
Windermere, Borrowdale, Dungeon Ghyll, and other Lake Country localities
familiar enough in Wordsworth's poetry, but strangely out of place in
"Christabel." It was certainly an artistic mistake to transfer Sir
Leoline's castle from fairyland to Cumberland.[24] There is one noble
passage in the second part, the one which Byron prefixed to his
"Farewell" to Lady Byron:

"Alas! they had been friends in youth," etc.

But the stress of personal emotion in these lines is not in harmony with
the romantic context. They are like a patch of cloth of gold let into a
lace garment and straining the delicate tissue till it tears.

The example of "The Ancient Mariner," and in a still greater degree of
"Chris