He all the while before me being full in view.
Some have thought that Wordsworth had S.T.C. in his mind, in writing this stanza. I cannot agree with this. The value and interest of the poem would be lessened by our imagining that Wordsworth's heart never failed him; and that, when he appears to moralise at his own expense, he was doing so at Coleridge's. Besides, the date of this poem, taken in connection with entries in the Grasmere Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth, makes it all but certain that Coleridge was not referred to.—Ed.
Compare in The Matron of Jedborough and her Husband, p. 417, ll. 66-69:
'Some inward trouble suddenly
Broke from the Matron's strong black eye—
A remnant of uneasy light,
A flash of something over-bright!'
Ed.