
Transcriber's Note: The original publication has been replicated faithfully except as listed here.
In the gentle hills of Somerset, a young Samuel Taylor Coleridge awakens to a modest cottage life that feels both ordinary and oddly poetic. The narrative follows his reluctant rise from sleep, the clumsy yet determined effort to stoke a fire, and his reverent pauses to admire the blooming orchard outside his window. Through these simple chores, the listener catches a glimpse of the poet’s self‑conscious blend of sloth, good nature, and a flicker of hidden brilliance.
Soon his wife Sara appears, bustling through the household with sharp wit and a pragmatic eye, gently chastising his dreamy distractions while offering steady companionship. Their interaction reveals the quiet tension between a man whose heart beats at a calm, steady tempo and a woman who longs for a spark of fervor. The arrival of their guest, the aspiring poet Charles Lloyd, adds another layer, introducing the promise of mentorship and the subtle strains of a mind caught between financial necessity and artistic yearning.
Language
en
Duration
~40 minutes (39K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Henry Gardiner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Release date
2011-06-06
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
1861–1936
A prolific British writer and poet, she is best remembered for reshaping J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan stories for younger readers and for lively literary sketches aimed at a broad audience.
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