ON AN INFANT, WHO DIED BEFORE ITS CHRISTENING.
Be rather than be _call'd_ a Child of God! Death whisper'd. With assenting Nod Its head upon the Mother's breast The baby bow'd, and went without demur, Of the kingdom of the blest Possessor, not Inheritor.
It refers to the second question in the Church Catechism. We are well, my dear Sara. I hope to be home at the end of ten or eleven weeks. If you should be in Bristol, you will probably be shewn by Mr. Estlin three letters which I have written to him altogether--and one to Mr. Wade. Mr. Estlin will permit you to take the letters to Stowey that Poole may see them, and Poole will return them. I have no doubt but I shall repay myself by the work which I am writing, to such an amount, that I shall have spent out of my income only fifty pounds at the end of August. My love to your sisters--and love and duty to your mother. God bless you, my love! and shield us from deeper afflictions, or make us resigned unto them (and perhaps the latter blessedness is greater than the former).
Your affectionate and faithful husband, S. T. COLERIDGE.
MY DEAR SARA,--Surely it is unnecessary for me to say how infinitely I languish to be in my native country, and with how many struggles I have remained even so long in Germany! I received your affecting letter, dated Easter Sunday; and, had I followed my impulses, I should have packed up and gone with Wordsworth and his sister, who passed through (and only passed through) this place two or three days ago. If they burn with such impatience to return to their native country, _they_ who are all to each other, what must I feel with everything pleasant and everything valuable and everything dear to me at a distance--here, where I may truly say my only amusement is--to labour! But it is, in the strictest sense of the word, impossible to collect what I have to collect in less than six weeks from this day; yet I read and transcribe from eight to ten hours every day. Nothing could support me but the knowledge that if I return now we shall be embarrassed and in debt; and the moral certainty that having done what I am doing we shall be more than _cleared_--not to add that so large a work with so great a quantity and variety of information from sources so scattered and so little known, even in Germany, will of course establish my character for industry and erudition certainly; and, I would fain hope, for reflection and genius. This day in June I hope and trust that I shall be in England. Oh that the vessel could but land at Shurton Bars! Not that I should wish to see you and Poole immediately on my landing. No!--the sight, the touch of my native country, were sufficient for one _whole_ feeling, the most deep unmingled emotion--but then and after a lonely walk of three miles--then, first of _all_, whom I knew, to see you and my _Friend_! It lessens the delight of the thought of my return that I must get at you through a tribe of _acquaintances_, damping the freshness of one's joy! My poor little baby! At this time I see the corner of the room where his cradle stood--and his cradle too--and I cannot help seeing him in the cradle. Little lamb! and the snow would not melt on his limbs! I have some faint recollections that he had that difficulty of breathing once before I left England--or was it Hartley? "A child, a child is born, and the fond heart dances; and yet the childless are the most happy." At Christmas[198] I saw a custom which pleased and interested me here. The children make little presents to their parents, and to one another, and the parents to the children. For three or four months before Christmas the girls are all busy, and the boys save up their pocket-money, to make or purchase these presents. What the present is to be is cautiously kept secret, and the girls have a world of contrivances to conceal it, such as working when they are at a visit, and the others are not with them, and getting up in the morning long before light, etc. Then on the evening before Christmas Day, one of the parlours is lighted up by the children, into which the parents must not go. A great yew bough is fastened on the table at a little distance from the wall, a multitude of little tapers are fastened in the bough, but not so as to burn it, till they are nearly burnt out, and coloured paper, etc., hangs and flutters from the twigs. Under this bough the children lay out in great neatness the presents they mean for their parents, still concealing in their pockets what they intend for each other. Then the parents are introduced, and each presents his little gift--and then they bring out the others, and present them to each other with kisses and embraces.