Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Christabel 8

25 May 2026

(6 March 2015) Here we go again with another installment of the Poet’s Corner. Recall that last week we left our heroine and her guest as Christabel offered wine made by her mother, and we noted that her mother had some strange powers; this week, we learn more of Christabel’s mother:

And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?
Christabel answered—Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the grey-haired friar tell
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle-bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!
I would, said Geraldine, she were!

We learn that Christabel’s mother died in childbirth–a common occurrence during this time–and further, the mother claimed on her death bed that she would ‘hear the castle-bell / Strike twelve upon [Christabel’s] wedding day.’ We have to wonder how this is possible, since the mother is dead, and this declaration lends weight to our supposition that the mother did have strange powers. The poem takes another strange turn following this stanza, when it appears that Geraldine can see the mother’s ghost:

But soon with altered voice, said she—
‘Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!
I have power to bid thee flee.’
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?

And why with hollow voice cries she,
‘Off, woman, off! this hour is mine—
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman, off! ’tis given to me.’

Something strange just happened! Not only can Geraldine see the spirits of the dead, she also has power to send them away–what is this lady Geraldine? And why does she tell the ghost that ‘this hour is [hers]?’ Remember which hour of the night we are in, and what creatures rule this hour after midnight! What follows cannot be good, especially when Christabel’s ‘guardian spirit’ has been sent away! Come back Wednesday for more of Coleridge’s unfinished poem, “Christabel.” Good reading.