Honour

Samuel Taylor Coleridge * Track #24 On The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol I

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Album The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol I

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Honour by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

About

Written in 1791, this poem is an exercise in memento mori, which is Latin for “remember death.” Memento mori designates the (usually religious) practice of reflecting on the transience of life and on the vanity of all human desires in the face of death.

More specifically, the poem is a critique of...

Honour Annotated

O, curas hominum! O, quantum est in rebus inane!

The fervid Sun had more than halv'd the day,
When gloomy on his couch Philedon lay;
His feeble frame consumptive as his purse,
His aching head did wine and women curse;
His fortune ruin'd and his wealth decay'd,
Clamorous his duns, his gaming debts unpaid,
The youth indignant seiz'd his tailor's bill,
And on its back thus wrote with moral quill:
'Various as colours in the rainbow shown,
Or similar in emptiness alone,
How false, how vain are Man's pursuits below!
Wealth, Honour, Pleasure—what can ye bestow?
Yet see, how high and low, and young and old
Pursue the all-delusive power of Gold.
Fond man! should all Peru thy empire own,
For thee tho' all Golconda's jewels shone,
What greater bliss could all this wealth supply?
What, but to eat and drink and sleep and die?
Go, tempt the stormy sea, the burning soil—
Go, waste the night in thought, the day in toil,
Dark frowns the rock, and fierce the tempests rave—
Thy ingots go the unconscious deep to pave!
Or thunder at thy door the midnight train,
Or Death shall knock that never knocks in vain.
Next Honour's sons come bustling on amain;
I laugh with pity at the idle train.
Infirm of soul! who think'st to lift thy name
Upon the waxen wings of human fame,—
Who for a sound, articulated breath—
Gazest undaunted in the face of death!
What art thou but a Meteor's glaring light—
Blazing a moment and then sunk in night?
Caprice which rais'd thee high shall hurl thee low,
Or Envy blast the laurels on thy brow.
To such poor joys could ancient Honour lead
When empty fame was toiling Merit's meed;
To Modern Honour other lays belong;
Profuse of joy and Lord of right and wrong,
Honour can game, drink, riot in the stew,
Cut a friend's throat;—what cannot Honour do?
Ah me!—the storm within can Honour still
For Julio's death, whom Honour made me kill?
Or will this lordly Honour tell the way
To pay those debts, which Honour makes me pay?
Or if with pistol and terrific threats
I make some traveller pay my Honour's debts,
A medicine for this wound can Honour give?
Ah, no! my Honour dies to make my Honour live.
But see! young Pleasure, and her train advance,
And joy and laughter wake the inebriate dance;
Around my neck she throws her fair white arms,
I meet her loves, and madden at her charms.
For the gay grape can joys celestial move,
And what so sweet below as Woman's love?
With such high transport every moment flies,
I curse Experience that he makes me wise;
For at his frown the dear deliriums flew,
And the changed scene now wears a gloomy hue.
A hideous hag th' Enchantress Pleasure seems,
And all her joys appear but feverous dreams.
The vain resolve still broken and still made,
Disease and loathing and remorse invade;
The charm is vanish'd and the bubble's broke,—
A slave to pleasure is a slave to smoke!'
Such lays repentant did the Muse supply;
When as the Sun was hastening down the sky,
In glittering state twice fifty guineas come,—
His Mother's plate antique had rais'd the sum.
Forth leap'd Philedon of new life possest:—
'Twas Brookes's all till two,—'twas Hackett's all the rest!

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