Coleridge. One can imagine how he would talk, interrupted only by their
mutually reading aloud their respective Tragedies, both of which are now
well-nigh forgotten, and by Wordsworth reading his 'Ruined Cottage,'
which is not forgotten. Miss Wordsworth describes S. T. C., as he then
was, in words that are well known. And he describes her thus, in words
less known,--'She is a woman indeed, in mind I mean, and in heart; for
her person is such that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would
think her ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman, you would
think her pretty, but her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In
every motion her innocent soul out-beams so brightly, that who saw her
would say, "Guilt was a thing impossible with her." Her information
various, her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature, and her
taste a perfect electrometer.'

The result of this meeting of the two poets was that the Wordsworths
shifted their abode from Racedown to Alfoxden, near Nether Stowey, in
Somersetshire, to be near Coleridge. Alfoxden was a large furnished
mansion, which the brother and sister had to themselves. 'We are three
miles from Stowey, the then abode of Coleridge,' writes the sister, 'and
two miles from the sea. Wherever we turn we have woods, smooth downs,
and valleys, with small brooks running down them, through green meadows,
hardly ever intersected with hedgerows, but scattered over with trees.
The hills that cradle these valleys are either covered with fern and
bilberries, or oak woods, which are cut for charcoal. Walks extend for
miles over the hill-tops, the great beauty of which is their wild
simplicity--they are perfectly smooth, without rocks.' It was in this
neighbourhood, as the two poets loitered in the silvan combs or walked
along the smooth Quantock hill-tops, looking seaward, with the 'sole
sister,' the companion of their walks, that they struck each from the
other his finest tones. It was with both of them the heyday of poetic
creation. In these walks it was that Coleridge, with slight hints from
Wordsworth, first chaunted the vision of the Ancient Mariner, and then
alone, 'The rueful woes of Lady Christabel.' This, too, was the birthday
of some of the finest of the Lyrical Ballads, of 'We are seven,' 'Simon
Lee,' 'Expostulation and Reply,' and 'The Tables Turned,' 'It is the
first mild day in March,' and 'I heard a thousand blended notes.'
Coleridge never knew again