Whose murmur soothed thy languid Mother's ear
After her throes, this Stream of name more dear
Since thou dost bear it—a memorial theme
For others; for thy future self, a spell
To summon fancies out of Time's dark cell."
Her surviving sister still resides in the charming retreat at the foot of Loughrigg Fell, overlooking the vale of Ambleside, which had so long been the home of both.
The latest addition to the group was made so lately as the year 1883, when Mr. William Wordsworth, the last surviving son of the poet, was added to the number.
There is, however, one more grave, which, though not within the enclosure, lies close behind it, and claims our notice. Hartley Coleridge, the eldest son of his more distinguished father, was for many years a familiar figure in the neighbourhood where he now rests. As a child, quiet, intelligent, and promising; as a youth, encouraging the hope that he was gifted with a genius which would lead to a career of no ordinary character; as a collegian, fulfilling the bright hopes of his friends, and attaining signal distinction;—his subsequent history affords one more instance of the fact that the greatest genius may by one failing be crippled, and the brightest promise be never followed by its full fruition. But this is not the place to recount his story. His published poems show that he inherited no small portion of his father's poetic ability. In his subsequently rather aimless life, he endeared himself not a little to the sympathetic inhabitants of the vale by his gentle, warm-hearted, and loving disposition. He was passionately fond of children, and would hardly pass through the village without taking a little one into his arms. For his father's sake, as well as his own, he was a favourite with the Wordsworths. It was by Mrs. Wordsworth, the friend of his infancy, that in his fifty-third year his relatives were summoned to his dying bed; and by Wordsworth himself (a year before his own death) his last resting-place was chosen. "Let him lie by us," said the aged poet, "he would have wished it;" adding to the sexton, "keep the ground for us—we are old people, and it cannot be for long."
The following sonnet may be given as a specimen of Hartley Coleridge's poetry, the closing line not inaptly expressing the prayerful attitude with which he approached the eternal future.
"SHE LOVED MUCH.