[Footnote 58: Published as a separate poem.--ED.]
I was quite out of spirits, and went into the orchard. When I came in,
he had finished the poem. It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun shone
upon the level fields, and they grew greener beneath the eye. Houses,
village, all cheerful--people at work. We sate in the orchard and
repeated _The Glow-worm_ and other poems. Just when William came to a
well or trough, which there is in Lord Darlington's park, he began to
write that poem of _The Glow-worm_; ... interrupted in going through the
town of Staindrop, finished it about 2 miles and a half beyond
Staindrop. He did not feel the jogging of the horse while he was
writing; but, when he had done, he felt the effect of it, and his
fingers were cold with his gloves. His horse fell with him on the other
side of St. Helens, Auckland. So much for _The Glow-worm_. It was
written coming from Middleham on Monday, 12th April 1802.... On Tuesday
20th, when we were sitting after tea, Coleridge came to the door. I
startled him with my voice. C. came up fatigued, but I afterwards found
he looked well. William was not well, and I was in low spirits.
_Wednesday, 21st._--William and I sauntered a little in the garden.
Coleridge came to us, and repeated the verses he wrote to Sara. I was
affected with them, and in miserable spirits.[59] The sunshine, the
green fields, and the fair sky made me sadder; even the little happy,
sporting lambs seemed but sorrowful to me. The pile wort spread out on
the grass a thousand shiny stars. The primroses were there, and the
remains of a few daffodils. The well, which we cleaned out last night,
is still but a little muddy pond, though full of water.... Read
Ferguson's life and a poem or two....
[Footnote 59: Can these "Verses" have been the first draft of
_Dejection, an Ode_, in its earliest and afterwards abandoned form? It
is said to have been written on 2nd April 1802.--ED.]
_Thursday, 22nd._--A fine mild morning. We walked into Easedale. The sun
shone. Coleridge talked of his plan of sowing the laburnum in the woods.
The waters were high, for there had been a great quantity of rain in the
night. I was tired and sate under the shade of a holly tree that grows
upon a rock, and looked down the stream. I then went to the single holly
behind that single rock in the field, and sate upon the grass till they
came from the waterfall. I saw them there, and heard William flinging
stones into the river, whose roaring was loud even where I was. When
they returned, William was repeating the poem:--