The very substance of the poem is woven of
the supernatural. The dream imagery is thrown into relief by
occasional touches of reality--the lighthouse, the church on the
cliff, the glimpses of the wedding, the quiet song of the hidden
brook in the leafy month of June. We, like the mariner, after
loneliness so awful that
"God himself
Scarce seemed there to be,"
welcome the firm earth beneath our feet, and the homely sound of
the vesper bell. In _Christabel_ we float dreamily through scenes
as unearthly and ephemeral as the misty moonlight, and the words
in which Coleridge conjures up his vision fall into music of
magic beauty. The opening of the poem creates a sense of
foreboding, and the horror of the serpent-maiden is subtly
suggested through her effect on Christabel. Coleridge hints at
the terrible with artistic reticence. In _Kubla Khan_ the chasm
is:
"A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover."
The poetry of Keats is often mysterious and suggestive of terror.
The description of the Gothic hall in _The Eve of St. Agnes_:
"In all the house was heard no human sound;
A chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk and hound,
Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor;"
the serpent-maiden, Lamia, who
"Seemed at once some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self;"
the grim story in _Isabella_ of Lorenzo's ghost, who
"Moaned a ghostly undersong
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briers along.
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