Archie and I visited Nether Stowey in July 2019, and stayed at the Ancient Mariner. We spent a lovely a few days walking the Quantock Hills, which was especially wonderful because I was born only a few miles away and remember walking there with my parents.
And after lonely sojourning
In such a quiet and surrounded nook,
This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main,
Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty
Of that huge amphitheatre of rich
And elmy fields, seems like society–
Conversing with the mind, and giving it
A livelier impulse and a dance of thought !
And now, belovéd Stowey!
Reading ‘Fears in Solitude’ before lights out, I found what must surely be a description of Bin Combe – the view as you come out from under the trees, looking west towards Nether Stowey. It’s got to be!
By the way, the poem is actually not about Nether Stowey as such, but more an outpouring of grief for poor old Blighty on the eve of a suspected invasion by the French. Best lines:
When he’s thinking how much we deserve a good hiding…
Even so, my countrymen ! have we gone forth
And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,
And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint
With slow perdition murders the whole man,
His body and his soul ! Meanwhile, at home,
…We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,
Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth ;
Contemptuous of all honourable rule,
Yet bartering freedom and the poor man’s life
For gold, as at a market !
When he’s telling us we can’t shift all the blame on to the government…
O Britons ! O my brethren !
We have been too long
Dupes of a deep delusion ! Some, belike,
Groaning with restless enmity, expect
All change from change of constituted power ;
As if a Government had been a robe,
On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged
Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe
Pulled off at pleasure.