English Poetry_ (1705), brought poets back to the original
sources of terror in popular tradition, and helped to revive the
latent feelings of awe, wonder and fear. In Coleridge's _Ancient
Manner_ the skeleton-ship with its ghastly crew--the
spectre-woman and her deathmate--the sensations of the mariner,
alone on a wide, wide sea, seize on our imagination with
irresistible power. The very substance of the poem is woven of
the supernatural. The dream imagery is thrown into relief by
occasional touches of reality--the lighthouse, the church on the
cliff, the glimpses of the wedding, the quiet song of the hidden
brook in the leafy month of June. We, like the mariner, after
loneliness so awful that

"God himself
Scarce seemèd there to be,"

welcome the firm earth beneath our feet, and the homely sound of
the vesper bell. In _Christabel_ we float dreamily through scenes
as unearthly and ephemeral as the misty moonlight, and the words
in which Coleridge conjures up his vision fall into music of
magic beauty. The opening of the poem creates a sense of
foreboding, and the horror of the serpent-maiden is subtly
suggested through her effect on Christabel. Coleridge hints at
the terrible with artistic reticence. In _Kubla Khan_ the chasm
is:

"A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover."