The first result
of this intercourse was a joint volume of poems called _Lyrical
Ballads_, published in 1798. This included Coleridge's _Ancient
Mariner_ and Wordsworth's _We are Seven_. About the same time
Coleridge wrote the first part of _Christabel_, the ode _France_,
_Kubla Khan_, and a few other well-known poems. The impression which
he made at this period of his life upon Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's
sister, was recorded by her in a letter. She says of him: "He is a
wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul and mind. . . . His
eye is large and full, and not very dark but gray, such an eye as would
receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every
emotion of his animated mind; it has more of the poet's eye in a fine
frenzy rolling than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows and an
overhanging forehead."
Of Coleridge as poet there is unfortunately little more to relate, for
during the remainder of his life he devoted himself mainly to
philosophy and literary criticism, with occasional work in journalism.
After a stay in Germany he brought back to England a knowledge of
German metaphysics and an enthusiasm for German literature which
enabled him to do much towards awakening in his own countrymen an
interest in these subjects.
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