Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Christabel 31

20 July 2026

(21 August 2015) Welcome back all! We finally come to the conclusion of part 2 of Coleridge’s long and unfinished poem, “Christabel.” We remind our readers that last time we saw Christabel’s father, Sir Leoline, turn a blind eye on his daughter’s plea for mercy before the Baron goes off with the villainess, Geraldine. This week we will examine the conclusion to this part, the very last lines Coleridge wrote before abandoning this poem:

THE CONCLUSION TO PART II
A little child, a limber elf,
Singing, dancing to itself,
A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
That always finds, and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father’s eyes with light;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last
Must needs express his love’s excess
With words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps ’tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps ’tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it ‘s most used to do.

So here it is, after many months we come to the end, and the poet teases us with a vision of a fairy dancing that becomes a weak justification for the final actions of the Baron. It is obvious that Coleridge planned to write more, for this conclusion really doesn’t resolve anything, only reflecting some of the final sentiments of Part II. Christabel rejected and left forlorn while her father follows after Geraldine, chasing after a vision that is false, although he has no idea it is false, for, like his daughter, he had fallen under the spell of the wicked Geraldine. What Coleridge would have done after this is unclear, nor is there any reason for why he stopped. Some have speculated that he stopped because he realized the poem headed toward a place he could not, at the time, go, comparing this stop to Chaucer’s, whose first group of Canterbury tales went from a tale of courtly love (the knight’s tale), to a tale of cuckolding (the miller’s tale), to a tale of rape (the reeve’s tale), to a tale of a prostitute (the cook’s tale), a tale that ran for about twenty lines before it was abandoned, Chaucer no doubt concerned for his head, as he was, at the time, court bard to Richard II, and this young king was well know for his capriciousness. We can only speculate what Coleridge’s poem might have been, if finished, but we have at least seen his mastery of the art, and its influence on this poet. On Wednesday, we will move on to another poem/poet yet to be determined. Until then, good reading!