Saturday 23 April 2016

Coleridge's "Wanderings of Cain" Versified



In the 1828 preface to the prose Wanderings of Cain (composed 1797), Coleridge notes that 'years afterward ...' (he means at some point between 1805 and 1815) ' ... I determined on commencing anew, and composing the whole in stanzas'. He claims to have made 'some progress in realizing this intention' but to have given up ('adverse gales drove my bark off the "Fortunate Isles" of the Muses' is how he puts it). Afterward, he says, he was able to remember only one stanza:
Encinctured with a twine of leaves,
That leafy twine his only dress!
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits,
By moonlight, in a wilderness.
The morn was bright, the air was free,
And fruits and flowers together grew
On many a shrub and many a tree:
And all put on a gentle hue,
Hanging in the shadowy air
Like a picture rich and rare.
It was a climate where, they say,
The night is more belov'd than day.
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,
That beauteous Boy to linger here?
Alone, by night, a little child,
In place so silent and so wild—
Has he no friend, no loving Mother near?
It's not possible to be sure how serious Coleridge was about this project of versifying the prose Wanderings of Cain, or to know whether he ever drafted more than this solitary stanza (he included it in a letter to Byron in 1815). Personally, I doubt it went any further. But if it had gone further, then I think the form would not have been a string of 17-line stanzas rhyming abcbdedeffgghihhi, all cloned from this one; but would rather have been stanzas of varying length rhyming variously, after the manner of Christabel. I do think, though, that he would have kept one formal feature from this sample throughout: that the each stanza would have topped off its run of tetrameter lines with a final pentameter.

There's a rather delicious pointlessness in trying to replicate Coleridge's declared project in this case; one I find hard to resist. I suppose there would be some point in finding out how easily, or otherwise, the original prose goes into rhymed tetrameters; but that's a pretty thin justification, really.  You can find that original prose, by the way, here.
Canto 2

"A little further, father dear,
And yet a little further on,
Until we come to where the clear
And silver moonlight shineth down."
Their road lay thwart a fir-tree wood;
And at its entrance tall trees stood
At distances from one another:
The path was broad within that cover,
In moonlight as the travellers viewed,
And moonlit shadows lying free
And silent there, appeared to be
Inhabitants of solitude.
The path then winded, and too soon
Grew narrow: where the sun at noon
Might speckle but could ne'er illume:
Grew dark and dark as any cavern's gloom.

"How dark it is, O father!" laught
The boyish Enos, "but the path
Beneath our feet is soft, and soon,
We shall emerge to the light of the moon."

"Lead on, my child!" said Cain: "as guide,
And stay thou ever by my side!"
In innocence the little child
Clasped a finger of the hand
Which in sin and anger wild
Had murdered righteous Abel, and
Did guide his father through that place.
"The fir branch drips upon thee, son."
"Tis pleasant father, for I've run
Most fast and eagerly to take
To thee the pitcher and the cake:
These droplets cool my body down.
How happy are the squirrels here
That feed upon these trees of fir!
They leap from bough to bough, they play
The old ones and their young together
Their nest a home that none dissever.
Noon yesterday I clomb a tree
O father, that I might but play
With them, but they all leapt away
And fled their branches and from me,
E'en to the slender twigs they leaped,
And in an instant I could see
Them sporting on another tree.
As thou treatst me, my thoughts were kind:
Why then, O father, did they flee?
Why, father, played they not with me?
They left my promised good behind.
I cried to them e'en as you weep
Whene'er thou givest food to me,
And when thou cover'st me at sleep,
And oft as I stand at thy knee
And thine eyes brimming look with grief at me?"

Cain ceased, his stifling groans low dropped
To earth, beneath the moonlight mild;
Beside him in the night his child
Fair Enos, likewise stood and stopped.

Cain lifted up his voice and cried
Most bitterly, and said, "Great Might!
He persecuteth me this side
And that, both on the left and right:
He doth pursue my soul like wind,
And like the sand-blast blows me through;
He is around me e'en as air!
O could I thrust my life behind!
My one desire is death's adieu,
When I look on the things that ne'er
Had life, nor move upon the earth—
Behold! they seem dear to mine eyes.
That man may live though lacking breath!
O to be one who never dies!
I might abide in darkness so,
And blackness, and an empty space!
Yea, I'd lie down, and nothing know,
No movement would my limbs e'er trace
Until I changed unto the rock
Within the lion's den that steepeth
On which the young lion's head does rest
Nightlong repose the while he sleepeth.
The torrent and the water shock
That roareth far off hath a voice;
And clouds in heaven look on me
With terror in their grim estate
The Mighty One against me moves
In winds within the cedar groves
And speaks; to leave me bare of joys
That suffering and silence be my fate."

Then Enos to his father spake:
"Arise my father, yet arise:
The place wherein I found the cake
And pitcher hereby closely lies."

And when Cain ask'd, "How knowest thou?"
The child replied—"Regard thou where
The large rocks lift their summit bare
A few strides distant from the grove;
And while e'en now thy spirit strove
To lift thy voice, I list, and heard echo."

Then child took hold of father's hand,
As he would raise him to his feet:
And Cain tho most too faint to stand
Rose slowly on his knees and pressed
Himself against the trunk of a fir,
And stood upon his feet, and followed on.

The path they walked was darkling ere
Three short strides of reaching there
And sudden turned where arch and frieze
Was formed by intwined blackest trees.
The moonlight for a moment gleamed
And like a dazzling portal seemed.
Enos ran and stood clear in air;
Til Cain, his father, came to sight
Emerged from the darkness into light,
The child affrighted was: for lo!
Cain's mighty limbs were wasted quite
As if by fire; his hair thick whorl
Like Bison's forehead's matted curl,
His fierce and sullen eye below
So glared as to engender fright;
And twined black locks on either side,
A rank and tangled mass provide
All stained and scorched, as though the grasp
Of burning iron had sought to rasp
And rend them; and his countenance
Exprest in language strange and trance
An unimagined agony
That had been, was, and yet still was to be.

All desolate the scene around;
As far as sight and eye could cover
The stark bare rocks faced one another,
Leaving between a long, broad strand
An interval of fine white sand.
No sign of seasons could be found
No matter where you wanderéd,
How close you peeped the land was dead.
It could no spring, no summer know,
Nor autumn: and the winter's snow,
That would have made a lovely sight
Fell not upon these scorching rocks
Or on these blasted sands of white.
No morning larks or fleeting hawks
E'er poised themselves above this blight
But the huge serpent savage hissed
Beneath the vulture's talons sharp,
The screaming vulture's wings did close
Upon the serpent's coiling twist.
The pointed shattered summits' scarp
And rocky ridge made mimicry
Of man's concerns, and seemed to scry
Mute prophecy of things not yet;
Steeples, and battlements, and ships
With mainmasts near a mile high.
As far from wood as a boy might set
A pebble thrown with slingshot strips
There was one rock stood by itself
Some distance from the main rock shelf.
Perhaps precipitated there
By that great groan of Earth's despair
Let out when our first father fell.
Before approach, it seemed to lie
Flat on the ground, twas hard to tell:
Its base lay slanted from its peak,
Where leaning rock met sands thereby
A tall man might stand upright there.
And in that place so stark and drear
Had Enos found the jug and cake,
And to this place he led his sire.
But ere they reached the rock they saw
A human shape; a prospect dire;
Its back towards them, hiddenly
And they advancing unperceived
Could hear him smite his breast, aggrieved
And cry aloud, "Wo, wo is me!
That I must never die again,
And yet I perish sore in pain
Of thirsting and of hunger. Wo is me!"

As pallid, as reflection bright
Of sheeted lightning on the cloud
Heavy-sailing through the night
Became the face of Cain; but tight
The child Enos held the shaggy pelt
Of his Sire's robe, and looking long
Whisperéd: "Ere that I could speak,
I know, O father, that I heard
That voice. Have not I often felt,
Recalled a voice sweet and strong?
O father! this in voice and word!"
And Cain exceeding trembled, weak:
The voice was sweet indeed, but thin
And querulous like of a slave
Who's pent in misery within,
Despairing even to the grave
And can not in himself refrain
From making lamentation drear.
Behold! Young Enos glid again,
And creeping softly round the base
Of rock, met stranger face to face
And looked upon him maugre fear.
The Shape shrieked loud, and turned around,
And Cain beheld him, saw his limbs
And face were of his brother ABEL
Whom he had killed! And Cain stood swouned
Like one who struggles in his sleep
Possessed by terrors in his dreams
Creatures of all fear and fable
Relinquish not the pull of the night's deep

Thus as he stood in silent waste
And awful darkness of his Soul,
The SHAPE fell at his feet, embraced
His knees, and cried out with cry
A bitter sound to terrify.
And words then uttered out of dole:
"Thou eldest born of Adam, whom
Eve my mother brought forth first
Cease thou my torment! Spare my doom!
That day of all my days most curst
When, feeding flocks in pastures green
By side of quiet rivers clean
Thou killedst me; and now the worst
I still live on: I am in and am misery."

Cain closed his eyes, and not to see
He hid them with his hands; and sighed
Again he op'd his eyes, and queyled,
And said to Enos at his side,
"What seest thou? Didst hear a voice
My son?" "Yes, father, I beheld
A man in garments unclean clad
And he in sweet voice, fully sad
And rich in lamentation, cried."
Then Cain raised up the Shape that seemed
Like unto Abel, thought he dreamed,
And said: "Our father's Maker had
Respect both unto thee and thine
Thy offspring and thy cleanly kine:
Wherefore hath He forsaken thee?"
Then shrieked the Shape a second time,
And rent the garment that him clad
His naked skin was like the sheet
Of white sands underneath their feet;
And for a third time he did shriek,
And threw himself on his face
Upon the sand beneath the peak,
Rock's shadow black upon the place.
And Cain and Enos sate beside
And hearkened to him as he cried
The child upon his right hand, and
Upon the left sat Cain, unmanned,
And all three there beneath the rock,
Within the shadow of that stony block.

The Shape of Abel rouséd up,
And spake unto the child; "I know
The food whereof I may not sup
Cold waters where I may not go
And drink: so wherefore didst thou take
Away my pitcher?" Cain replied,
"Didst thou not favour find with God?
Within His holy sight, and by His side?"

The Shape replied, "The Lord is God
But of the living only, him they laud:
The dead possess another God."
Then Enos lifted up his eyes
And did a child's prayer impart
But Cain rejoicéd darkling wise
Full secretly within his heart.

"Most wretched shall they be the days.
Of all their mortal life," exclaimed
The Shape, "who sacrifice with praise
Acceptable and aye acclaimed
Offered unto the God of the dead;
But after death their labour stoppeth.
Yet onto me the woe aye droppeth,
For I was well beloved by He
The God of the living, he none other:
And cruel wert thou, O my brother,
Who didst snatch me away from all
His power, his dominion close."
He spake and sudden he arose
And swift across the sands did flee;
And Cain said in his heart, "The curse
Of GOD the Lord of Hosts is me;
But who is the God of the dead?"
As he pursued the Shape traverse
The sands, the Shape with shrieking fled
The sands behind the steps of Cain
Rose like white mists against the black
But Abel's passage held not back
His feet disturbéd not the sands
And swift outrun Cain overland,
Til turning short, he wheeléd round,
And reached again the rocky crop
Beneath which they had come to stop
Where Enos still stood; and the child
Reached out his arm and fingers mild
Caught hold his garment as he passed
And fell he to the ground at last.
But Cain beheld him not, and cried,
"He has passed into the dark woods,"
And so walked slowly to the side;
Of those stark rocks, where his own child
His Enoch waited, spake him words
That he had caught hold of his pelt
As he passed by, and that the man
Had sprawled upon the ground a span
And Cain once more beside him knelt,
And said, "O Abel brother mine
Would that I could lament for thee,
But that the words within me pine,
My spirit withered and unfree
And burnt with agony extreme.
Now, now, I pray thee, by thy team
Of herding flocks, and by thy pasture,
And by the quiet rivers where
Thou lovedst to watch the stream flow faster,
I pray thee tell me all thou knowst.
Who is the God of the dead? And where
Doth he make of his dwelling place?
What sacrifices doth he find
Acceptable before his face?
For I have offered, but have not
Received an answer; I have prayed,
And not been heard; I am forgot
Can more affliction e'er be laid
Upon me, sole of humankind?
Where is Death's god? To him I goest."
The Shape arose and answered,
"O that thou once hadst had on me
Such pity as I have on thee.
Come, Son of Adam!" thus he said
"And bring with thee Enos, thy faithful child!"

They three passed through the desert wild
Between the rocks across white sands
Silent as the shadows in silent lands.
So there you have it. As you can see, if you compare this with Coleridge's original prose (and really, can you be bothered? I'm amazed you've read as far as this, to be honest) this cleaves really pretty closely to the original in terms of expression, specific images and particular expression. I've added one or two small things here and there, but mostly this is very close to the original, all the way through. I might add, I found this easier to do (howsoever rough and patchy the finished result) than I thought it might be. The conclusion I draw is that Coleridge sketched out his initial prose with a rough tetrameter pattern lurking in the back of his mind, or perhaps it would be less reckless to say: that the ponderous sub-Biblical cadences of his prose, replete with repetition and portentous elevation, was leavened by something of the rhythmic and balladic genius he was about to put into The Ancient Mariner.

2 comments:

  1. A few years back I completed 'Christabel' since STC was unable/unwilling to do so himself. Premiered at Halsway Manor in the Quantocks etc etc. http://www.ralphhoyte.com/#/christabel-released/4581191738

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    1. How wonderful, Ralph! The samples on your website sound spot-on Coleridge, and I applaud your ambition in expanding the original to twenty chapters. I have my thoughts on the way Christabel might have ended, but they're much less interesting than yours, I think.

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