No More Learning

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. We
returned by Dulverton to Alfoxden. 'The Ancient Mariner' grew and grew
till it became too important for our first object, which was limited
to our expectation of five pounds; and we began to talk of a volume
which was to consist, as Mr. Coleridge has told the world, of Poems
chiefly on natural subjects taken from common life, but looked at, as
much as might be, through an imaginative medium. Accordingly I wrote
'The Idiot Boy', 'Her eyes are wild', etc. , 'We are Seven', 'The
Thorn', and some others. To return to 'We are Seven', the piece that
called forth this note, I composed it while walking in the grove at
Alfoxden. My friends will not deem it too trifling to relate, that
while walking to and fro I composed the last stanza first, having
begun with the last line. When it was all but finished, I came in and
recited it to Mr. Coleridge and my sister, and said, "A prefatory
stanza must be added, and I should sit down to our little tea-meal
with greater pleasure if my task was finished. " I mentioned in
substance what I wished to be expressed, and Coleridge immediately
threw off the stanza, thus;

A little child, dear brother Jem,

I objected to the rhyme, 'dear brother Jem,' as being ludicrous; but
we all enjoyed the joke of hitching in our friend James Tobin's name,
who was familiarly called Jem. He was the brother of the dramatist;
and this reminds me of an anecdote which it may be worth while here to
notice.