No More Learning

I sit and sing to them. 1798. ]


[Variant 4:

1836.

. . . little Jane; 1798. ]


[Variant 5:

1827.

And all the summer dry, 1798. ]


[Variant 6:

1836.

The little Maiden did reply, 1798. ]


* * * * *


FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT


[Footnote A: It was in June, after leaving Alfoxden finally. --Ed. ]


[Footnote B: The whole of this stanza was written by Coleridge. In a MS.
copy of the poem, transcribed by him, after 1806, Wordsworth gave it the
title 'We are Seven, or Death', but afterwards restored the original
title. --Ed. ]





* * * * *





ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS


Composed 1798. --Published 1798.


'Retine vim istam, falsa enim dicam, si coges. '

EUSEBIUS. [A]


* * * * *

[This was suggested in front of Alfoxden. The boy was a son of my
friend, Basil Montagu, who had been two or three years under our care.
The name of Kilve is from a village on the Bristol Channel, about a
mile from Alfoxden; and the name of Liswyn Farm was taken from a
beautiful spot on the Wye, where Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and I had
been visiting the famous John Thelwall, who had taken refuge from
politics, after a trial for high treason, with a view to bring up his
family by the profits of agriculture, which proved as unfortunate a
speculation as that he had fled from. Coleridge and he had both been
public lecturers; Coleridge mingling, with his politics, Theology,
from which the other elocutionist abstained, unless it was for the
sake of a sneer. This quondam community of public employment induced
Thelwall to visit Coleridge at Nether Stowey, where he fell in my way.
He really was a man of extraordinary talent, an affectionate husband,
and a good father. Though brought up in the city, on a tailor's board,
he was truly sensible of the beauty of natural objects. I remember
once, when Coleridge, he, and I were seated together upon the turf, on
the brink of a stream in the most beautiful part of the most beautiful
glen of Alfoxden, Coleridge exclaimed, 'This is a place to reconcile
one to all the jarrings and conflicts of the wide world. ' 'Nay,' said
Thelwall, 'to make one forget them altogether.