"Wild were the walks upon those lonely downs, Track leading into track, how marked, how worn, Into light verdure, between fern and gorse. Winding away its never ending line On their smooth surface, evidence was none; But, there, lay open to our daily haunt, A range of unappropriated earth, Where youth's ambitious feet might move at large; Whence, unmolested wanderers, we beheld The shining giver of the day diffuse His brightness o'er a track of sea and land Gay as our spirits, free as our desires, As our enjoyments boundless. From those heights We dropped at pleasure into sylvan coombs, Where arbors of impenetrable shade, And mossy seats detained us side by side, With hearts at ease, and knowledge in our breasts That all the grove and all the day was ours." In Coleridge's poem of Fears in Solitude, a noble-hearted poem, these hills, and one of these very dells, are described with equal graphic truth and affection. "A green and silent spot amid the hills, A small and silent dell! O'er stiller place No singing skylark ever poised himself; The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, All golden with the never bloomless furz Which now blooms most profusely; but the dell Bathed by the mist is fresh and delicate As vernal cornfields, or the unripe flax, When through its half-transparent stalks at eve The level sunshine glimmers with green light. Oh! 'tis a quiet, spirit-healing nook! Which all, methinks, would love: but chiefly he, The humble man, who, in his youthful years, Knew just so much of folly as had made His early manhood more securely wise! Here might he lie on fern or withered heath, While from the singing lark, that sings unseen The minstrelsy that solitude loves best, And from the sun and from the breezy air, Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame; And he with many feelings, many thoughts, Made up a meditative joy, and found Religious musings in the forms of nature! And so his senses gradually wrapped In a half-sleep, he dreams of better worlds, And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark, That singest like an angel in the clouds." Here, buried in summer beauty from the world, in this green and delicious oratory, he lay and poured out those finely human thoughts on war and patriotism, which enrich this poem; which closes with a descriptive view of these hills, the wide prospects from them, and of little quiet Stowey lying at their feet.