130. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [1 July 1795]*

Wednesday.My dear Grosvenor

I am hard employed that I may soon visit you. in getting forwards with Joan, & as more than three parts of the poem will be entirely rewritten you may suppose this is no light task. as soon as I shall be a fortnight before the press I will absent myself for that time.

do you know Grosvenor I hate the idea of coming to see you for a fortnight. poor Seward — I thought to have seen him this summer. you know I detest the idea of writing upon a lost friend — yet the frame of mind so occasiond will tinge what we are employed upon. these lines are in the first book.

speaking of the old hermit Bizardo.

In the full of years he sunk. his eye grew dimAnd on the bed of leaves his outstretchd limbsLay useless. patiently did he endure,In faith anticipating blessedness,Already more than man in that dread hourWhen man is meanest. his were the best joysThe pious know & his last prayer was praise.I saw him die. I saw the dews of DeathStarting on his cold brow — I heard him thenPour out a blessing on me. — Son of OrleansI would not wish to live to know that hourWhen I could think upon a dear friend deadAnd weep not. ¹

I think of him Bedford when alone — methinks a man has no right to gloom a company with his own melancholy feelings.

Cottle my bookseller (a good man & one whose liberality might rescue the fraternity from all obloquy —) is soon coming up to town — chiefly to get a good frontispiece engraved. this is the subject. it requires to be well designed & by a man of genius.

Last evening lone in thought I wanderd forth.Down in the dingles depth there is a brookThat makes its way between the craggy stonesMurmuring hoarse murmurs. on an aged oakWhose root, uptorn by tempests, overhangsThe stream, I sat & markd the deep red cloudsGather before the wind, whilst the rude dashOf waters rockd my senses, & the mistsRose round. there as I gazd a form dim-seenDescended. like the dark & moving cloudsThat in the moon beam change their shadowy shapes.His voice was on the breeze. he bade me hailThe missiond Maid — for lo! the hour was come!Then was the future present to my viewAnd strange events yet in the womb of TimeTo me made manifest. I sat entrancedIn the beatitude of heavenly vision. ²

And this my dear friend is what I am doing at Bristol! as for the future — I can only hope that it will be — the future in rus.

however I earnestly hope & labour to be with you in a fortnight. & then you shall know what I am doing & how I hope to live.

I am very earnest to see Wynn. God bless him!

Strachey has got the Greek Epigrams. I have heard well of him from Billsborrow (who wrote those lines prefixd to the Zoonomia).³

remember me to C Collins. it is a twelvemonth since I have either seen or heard of him.

that twelvemonth has been a very busy one — & has improved my head & heart whatever effect it may have had on my happiness.

write to me Grosvenor. the sight of your handwriting rouses a long train of associations of the pleasing order.

I have put your name & titles to decorate my list & lengthen it. but as I wish you to have a specimen of our B[MS torn] binding as well as typery — you must let me provide your [MS torn]y. the list of subscribers is at Cadells⁴ — & as they no longer belong to me I feel a more earnest wish to lengthen it. the book will be out by the 1st of January.

fare you well.

yrs affectionately Robert Southey.