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 they well
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,' &c., and '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 of 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 t