[This was suggested in front of Alfoxden.  The boy was a son of my friend, Basil Montagu, who had been two or three years under our care.  The name of Kilve is from a village on the Bristol Channel, about a mile from Alfoxden; and the name of Liswyn Farm was taken from a beautiful spot on the Wye, where Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and I had been visiting the famous John Thelwall, who had taken refuge from politics, after a trial for high treason, with a view to bring up his family by the profits of agriculture, which proved as unfortunate a speculation as that he had fled from.  Coleridge and he had both been public lecturers; Coleridge mingling, with his politics, Theology, from which the other elocutionist abstained, unless it was for the sake of a sneer.  This quondam community of public employment induced Thelwall to visit Coleridge at Nether Stowey, where he fell in my way.  He really was a man of extraordinary talent, an affectionate husband, and a good father.  Though brought up in the city, on a tailor’s board, he was truly sensible of the beauty of natural objects.  I remember once, when Coleridge, he, and I were seated together upon the turf, on the brink of a stream in the most beautiful part of the most beautiful glen of Alfoxden, Coleridge exclaimed, ’This is a place to reconcile one to all the jarrings and conflicts of the wide world.’  ‘Nay,’ said Thelwall, ‘to make one forget them altogether.’  The visit of this man to Coleridge was, as I believe Coleridge has related, the occasion of a spy being sent by Government to watch our proceedings; which were, I can say with truth, such as the world at large would have thought ludicrously harmless.—­I.  F.]

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In the editions 1798 to 1843 the title of this poem is ’Anecdote for Fathers, showing how the practice [1] of lying may be taught’.  It was placed among the “Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.”—­Ed.

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THE POEM

  I have a boy of five years old;
  His face is fair and fresh to see;
  His limbs are cast in beauty’s mould,
  And dearly he loves me.

  One morn we strolled on our dry walk, 5
  Our quiet home [2] all full in view,
  And held such intermitted talk
  As we are wont to do.

  My thoughts on former pleasures ran;
  I thought of Kilve’s delightful shore, 10
  Our [3] pleasant home when spring began,
  A long, long year before.

  A day it was when I could bear
  Some fond regrets to entertain; [4]
  With so much happiness to spare, 15
  I could not feel a pain.

  The green earth echoed to the feet
  Of lambs that bounded through the glade,
  From shade to sunshine, and as fleet
  From sunshine back to shade.[5] 20