poem, I do not ask my friend the aiding verse; I would not wrong your
feelings by proposing any improvements (did I think myself capable of
suggesting 'era) in such personal poems as "Thou bleedest, my poor
heart,"--'od so,--I am caught,--I have already done it; but that simile
I propose abridging would not change the feeling or introduce any alien
ones. Do you understand me? In the twenty-eighth, however, and in the
"Sigh," and that composed at Clevedon, things that come from the heart
direct, not by the medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an
alteration.

When my blank verse is finished, or any long fancy poem, "propino tibi
alterandum, cut-up-andum, abridgeandum," just what you will with, it:
but spare my ewe-lambs! That to "Mrs. Siddons' now, you were welcome to
improve, if it had been worth it; but I say unto you again, Coleridge,
spare my ewe-lambs! I must confess, were the mine, I should omit, _in
editione secunda_, effusions two and three, because satiric and below
the dignity of the poet of "Religious Musings," fifth, seventh, half of
the eighth, that "Written in early youth," as far as "thousand
eyes,"--though I part not unreluctantly with that lively line,--

"Chaste joyance dancing in her bright blue eyes,"

and one or two just thereabouts. But I would substitute for it that
sweet poem called "Recollection," in the fifth number of the "Watchman,"
better, I think, than the remainder of this poem, though not differing
materially; as the poem now stands, it looks altogether confused. And do
not omit those lines upon the "Early Blossom" in your sixth number of
the "Watchman;" and I would omit the tenth effusion, or what would do
better, alter and improve the last four lines. In fact, I suppose, if
they were mine, I should _not_ omit 'em; but your verse is, for the most