412. To Thomas Poole

Address: Mr T. Poole | Nether Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset MS. British Museum. Pub. Letters, i.364. Postmark: 22 September 1801. Stamped: Keswick.

Greta Hall, Keswick. Sept. 19. 1801

By a letter from Davy I have learnt, Poole! that your Mother is with the Blessed. -- I have given her the tears & the pang, which belong to her Departure; & now she will remain to me for ever what she has long been, a dear & venerable Image, often gazed at by me in imagination, and always with affection & filial piety. She was the only Being whom I ever felt in the relation of Mother: & She is with God! We are all with God! -- What shall I say to you? I can only offer a prayer of Thanksgiving for you, that you are one who have habitually connected the act of Thought with that of Feeling; & that your Natural Sorrow is so mingled up with a sense of the Omnipresence of the Good Agent, that I cannot wish it to be other than what, I know, it is. The frail, & the too painful, will gradually pass away from you; & there will abide in your Spirit a great & sacred accession to those solemn Remembrances and faithful Hopes, in which and by which the Almighty lays deep the foundations of our continuous Life, and distinguishes us from the Brutes, that perish. As all things pass away, & those Habits are broken up which constituted our own & particular Self, our nature by a moral instinct cherishes the desire of an unchangeable Something, & thereby awakens or stirs up anew the passion to promote permanent Good, & facilitates that grand business of our Existence -- still further, & further still, to generalize our affections, till Existence itself is swallowed up in Being, & we are in Christ even as he is in the Father. -- It is among the advantages of these events that they learn us to associate a new & deep feeling with all the old good phrases, all the reverend sayings of comfort & sympathy, that belong, as it were, to the whole human Race -- I felt this, dear Poole! as I was about to write my old --

God bless you & love you for ever and ever!

Your affectionate Friend,

S. T. Coleridge

Would it not be well, if you were to change the scene awhile! Come to me, Poole! -- No -- No -- no. -- You have none that love you so well as I -- I write with tears that prevent my seeing what I am writing. --

-758-