Old Lewis (’twas his evil day)
Stood trembling in his shoes;
The ox was his—what could he say?
His legs were stiffened with dismay,
The ox ran o’er him mid the fray,
And gave him his death’s bruise.
The baited ox drove on (but here,
The Gospel scarce more true is,
My muse stops short in mid career—
Nay, gentle reader, do not sneer!
I could chuse but drop a tear,
A tear for good old Lewis!)
Poetical Works, p. 134.
[159] The probable date of this letter is Thursday, June 8, 1797. On Monday, June 5, Coleridge breakfasted with Dr. Toulmin, the Unitarian minister at Taunton, and on the evening of that or the next day he arrived on foot at Racedown, some forty miles distant. Mrs. Wordsworth, in a letter to Sara Coleridge, dated November 7, 1845, conveys her husband’s recollections of this first visit in the following words: “Your father,” she says, “came afterwards to visit us at Racedown, where I was living with my sister. We have both a distinct remembrance of his arrival. He did not keep to the high road, but leaped over a high gate and bounded down the pathless field, by which he cut off an angle. We both retain the liveliest possible image of his appearance at that moment. My poor sister has just been speaking of it to me with much feeling and tenderness.” A portion of this letter, of which I possess the original MS., was printed by Professor Knight in his Life of Wordsworth, i. 111.
[160] This passage, which for some reason Cottle chose to omit, seems to imply that the second edition of the poems had not appeared by the beginning of June.
... Such, O my earliest friend!
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb life’s upland road,
Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre.
Poetical Works, p. 81, l. 9-14.
... and some most false,
False, and fair-foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E’en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damp
Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
That I woke poisoned.
Poetical Works, p. 82, l. 25-30.