Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Christabel 9

27 May 2026

(13 March 2015) We return to Coleridge’s “Christabel,” reminding our readers that we just saw Geraldine dismiss the spirits watching over Christabel, with the claim that this hour belonged to her; we reminded our readers that this hour is the witching hour, giving us further reason to question this lady’s motives and purpose. Today, we see Christabel’s response to Geraldine’s action:

Then Christabel knelt by the lady’s side,
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue—
Alas! said she, this ghastly ride—
Dear lady! it hath wildered you!
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, ‘ ’tis over now!’

Again the wild-flower wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes ‘gan glitter bright,
And from the floor whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright:
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countrèe.

Christabel believes that her ‘ghastly ride’ at the hands of scoundrels has ‘wildered’ her, which is to say, driven her crazy, and so, Christabel offers more of the wildflower wine to calm and rejuvenate her. We are told that when Geraldine stands up, she looks beautiful (perhaps an effect of the wine, or her banishing the spirits?), and the poet adds a final simile to a far country, meaning that she is an exotic lady, nothing like those with which we would have been familiar at that time, ladies from places like Ethiopia, India, or China. Geraldine then makes the following declaration:

And thus the lofty lady spake—
‘All they who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake
And for the good which me befel,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself; for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.’

Geraldine tells her hostess that she is loved by all those who live in heaven, and for the good deed she has done, Geraldine will “requite [her] well.” We usually think of ‘requite’ as a reward for something, but there is more to it than a simple reward, something closer to an answer, or response, to what Christabel has done. She follows this with two things that don’t seem to go together: disrobing and praying, and the question becomes, prayer to whom? And for what end? To learn the answers, come back Friday for another installment of the Poet’s Corner. In the meantime, good reading!