No More Learning

In Dorothy Wordsworth's Alfoxden Journal
the following occurs, under date 25th January 1798:

"Went to Poole's after tea. The sky spread over with one continuous
cloud, whitened by the light of the moon, which, though her dim shape
was seen, did not throw forth so strong a light as to chequer the
earth with shadows. At once the clouds seemed to cleave asunder, and
lift her in the centre of a black-blue vault. She sailed along,
followed by multitudes of stars, small, and bright, and sharp; their
brightness seemed concentrated. "

Ed. ]





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WE ARE SEVEN


Composed 1798. --Published 1798.


[Written at Alfoxden in the spring of 1798, under circumstances
somewhat remarkable. The little girl who is the heroine, I met within
the area of Goodrich Castle in the year 1793. Having left the Isle of
Wight, and crost Salisbury Plain, as mentioned in the preface to
'Guilt and Sorrow', I proceeded by Bristol up the Wye, and so on to N.
Wales to the Vale of Clwydd, where I spent my summer under the roof of
the father of my friend, Robert Jones.

In reference to this poem, I will here mention one of the most
remarkable facts in my own poetic history, and that of Mr. Coleridge.
In the spring of the year 1798, he, my sister, and myself, started
from Alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon, with a view to visit
Linton and the Valley of Stones near it; and as our united funds were
very small, we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a
poem, to be sent to the 'New Monthly Magazine', set up by Philips, the
bookseller, and edited by Dr. Aikin.
Accordingly we set off, and
proceeded along the Quantock Hills, towards Watchet; and in the course
of this walk was planned the poem of 'The Ancient Mariner', founded on
a dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr. Cruikshank. Much the
greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention; but certain
parts I myself suggested: for example, some crime was to be committed
which should bring upon the Old Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards
delighted to call him, the spectral persecution, as a consequence of
that crime, and his own wanderings. I had been reading in Shelvocke's
'Voyages', a day or two before, that, while doubling Cape Horn, they
frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort of
sea-fowl, some extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet.
'Suppose,' said I, 'you represent him as having killed one of these
birds on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of
these regions take upon them to avenge the crime. ' The incident was
thought fit for the purpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested
the navigation of the ship by the dead men, but do not recollect that
I had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem. The gloss with
which it was subsequently accompanied was not thought of by either of
us at the time; at least not a hint of it was given to me, and I have
no doubt it was a gratuitous after-thought. We began the composition
together, on that to me memorable evening: I furnished two or three
lines at the beginning of the poem, in particular--

And listen'd like a three years' child;
The Mariner had his will.

These trifling contributions, all but one (which Mr. C. has with
unnecessary scrupulosity recorded), slipt out of his mind, as well
they might. As we endeavoured to proceed conjointly (I speak of the
same evening), our respective manners proved so widely different, that
it would have been quite presumptuous in me to do anything but
separate from an undertaking upon which I could only have been a clog.
We returned after a few days from a delightful tour, of which I have
many pleasant, and some of them droll enough, recollections.