EPITAPH[491:1]

Stop, Christian passer-by!—Stop, child of God,
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
[[492]]A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.
O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.;
That he who many a year with toil of breath [5]
Found death in life, may here find life in death!
Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame[492:1]
He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!

9th November, 1833.

FOOTNOTES:

[491:1] First published in 1834. Six MS. versions are extant:—(a) in a letter to Mrs. Aders of 1833 (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, ii. 770); (b) in a letter to J. G. Lockhart; (c) in a letter to J. H. Green of October 29, 1833: (d e) in a copy of Grew's Cosmologia Sacra, annotated by Coleridge in 1833; (f) in a copy of the Todtentanz, which belonged to Thomas Poole.

[492:1] N.B. 'for' in the sense of 'instead of'. ἔστη κεῖται ἀναστήσει—stetit: restat: resurget. ΕΣΤΗΣΕ. Letter to J. G. Lockhart, 1833.

LINENOTES:

[Title] or Heading] (a) 'Epitaph on a Poet little known, yet better known by the Initials of his name than by the Name Itself.' S. T. C. Letter to Mrs. Aders: (b) 'Epitaph on a Writer better known by the Initials of his Name than by the name itself. Suppose an upright tombstone.' S. T. C. Letter to J. G. Lockhart: (c) 'On an author not wholly unknown; but better known by the initials of his name than by the name itself, which he partly Graecized, Hic jacet qui stetit, restat, resurget—on a Tombstone.' Letter to J. H. Green: (d) 'Epitaph in Hornsey Churchyard. Hic jacet S. T. C. Grew (1): (e) 'Etesi's (sic) Epitaph,' (and below (e)) 'Inscription on the Tombstone of one not unknown; yet more commonly known by the Initials of his Name than by the Name itself.' Grew (2): (f) 'Esteese's αυτοεπιταφιον.' Note in Poole's Todtentanz.

From the letter to Mrs. Aders it appears that Coleridge did not contemplate the epitaph being inscribed on his tombstone, but that he intended it to be printed 'in letters of a distinctly visible and legible size' on the outline of a tomb-stone to be engraved as a vignette to be published in a magazine, or to illustrate the last page of his 'Miscellaneous Poems' in the second volume of his Poetical Works. It would seem that the artist, Miss Denman, had included in her sketch of the vignette the figure of a Muse, and to this Coleridge objects:—'A rude old yew-tree, or a mountain ash, with a grave or two, or any other characteristic of a village church-yard,—such a hint of a landscape was all I meant; but if any figure rather that of an elderly man, thoughtful with quiet tears upon his cheek.' Letters of S. T. C., 1895, ii. 770.