But what is all to his delight,
Who having long been doomed to roam, [10]
Throws off the bundle from his back,
Before the door of his own home?
Home-sickness is a wasting pang;
This feel I hourly more and more:
There's healing only in thy wings, [15]
Thou breeze that play'st on Albion's shore!
May 6, 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[314:1] First published in the Annual Anthology (1800), with the signature 'Cordomi': included in Sibylline Leaves, 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834. The lines, without title or heading, were sent in a letter from Coleridge to Poole, dated May 6, 1799 (Letters of S. T.C., 1895, i. 298). Dr. Carlyon in his Early Years, &c. (1856, i. 66), prints stanzas 1, 3, and 4. He says that they were written from Coleridge's dictation, in the Brockenstammbuch at the little inn on the Brocken. The title 'Home-Sick', &c., was prefixed in the Annual Anthology, 1800.
LINENOTES:
[[13]]
a wasting pang] no baby-pang MS. Letter, 1799, An. Anth.
[[15]]