Yes! Liberty the soul of life shall reign,
Shall throb in every pulse, shall flow thro’ every vein!
He hopes that she will extend her influence wider and wider until every land shall boast “one independent soul.” In his Ode to France he writes:
With what deep worship I have still adored
The spirit of divinest Liberty.
Shelley may have had this in mind when he wrote in Alastor
And lofty hopes of divine liberty
Thoughts the most dear to him.
Coleridge’s most important radical work, which Lamb considered to be more than worthy of Milton, is Religious Musings. Shelley’s Queen Mab bears so strong a resemblance to it that the Religious Musings has been called Coleridge’s Queen Mab. In the first part he lashes his countrymen for joining the coalition against France under pretence of defending religion. Further on he gives his views on society, its origin and progress. It is to private property that we must attribute all the sore ills that desolate our mortal life. Unlike many radicals, however, Coleridge can see the good in an institution as well as the evil. Thus he holds that the rivalry resulting from our present economic condition has stimulated thought and action
From avarice thus, from luxury and war,
Sprang heavenly science; and from science freedom.
The innumerable multitude of wrongs, continues Coleridge, by man on man inflicted, cry to heaven for vengeance. Even now (1796) the storm begins which will cast to earth the rich, the great, and all the mighty men of the world. This will be followed by a period of sunshine, when Love will return and peace and happiness be the portion of all.
As when a shepherd on a vernal morn
Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow foot,
Darkling with earnest eyes he traces out
The immediate road, all else of fairest kind
Hid or deformed. But lo! the bursting Sun!
Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam
Straight the black vapor melteth, and in globes
Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree:
On every leaf, on every blade it hangs;
And wide around the landscape streams with glory!
So we will fly into the sun of love, impartially view creation, and love it all. We will then see that God diffused through society makes it one whole; that every victorious murder is a blind suicide; that no one injures and is not uninjured. This change will be brought about by a return to pure Faith and meek Piety. He differs from Shelley in this, that he does not look for reformation through the overturning of thrones and churches. The existing frame-work of society is all right; it needs only to be freed from some of its barnacles.