In the midst of this raving political excitement three human beings were to be found who although they were certainly not unmoved by it, were able to detach themselves from it when they pleased, and to seclude themselves in a privacy impenetrable even to an echo of the tumult around them. In April or May, 1798, the _Nightingale_ was written, and these are the sights and sounds which were then in young Coleridge’s eyes and ears:— “No cloud, no relique of the sunken day Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge! You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, But hear no murmuring: it flows silently, O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, A balmy night! and tho’ the stars be dim, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers That gladden the green earth, and we shall find A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.” We happen also to have Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal for April and May. Here are a few extracts from it:— April 6th.—“Went a part of the way home with Coleridge. . . . The spring still advancing very slowly. The horse-chestnuts budding, and the hedgerows beginning to look green, but nothing fully expanded.” April 9th.—“Walked to Stowey . . . The sloe in blossom, the hawthorns green, the larches in the park changed from black to green in two or three days. Met Coleridge in returning.” April 12th.—“ . . . The spring advances rapidly, multitudes of primroses, dog-violets, periwinkles, stitchwort.” April 27th.—“Coleridge breakfasted and drank tea, strolled in the wood in the morning, went with him in the evening through the wood, afterwards walked on the hills: the moon; a many-coloured sea and sky.” May 6th, Sunday.—“Expected the painter {101} and Coleridge. A rainy morning—very pleasant in the evening. Met Coleridge as we were walking out. Went with him to Stowey; heard the nightingale; saw a glow-worm.”