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."