QUITTED London, Friday, 14th September 1798. Arrived at Yarmouth on Saturday noon, and sailed on Sunday morning at eleven o'clock. Before we heaved the anchor I was consigned to the cabin, which I did not quit till we were in still water at the mouth of the Elbe, on Tuesday morning at ten o'clock. I was surprised to find, when I came upon deck, that we could not see the shores, though we were in the river. It was to my eyes a still sea. But oh ! the gentle breezes and the gentle motion ! . . . As we advanced towards Cuxhaven the shores appeared low and flat, and thinly peopled; here and there a farm-house, cattle feeding, hay-stacks, a cottage, a windmill. Some vessels were at anchor at Cuxhaven, an ugly, black-looking place. Dismissed a part of our crew, and proceeded in the packet-boat up the river.
Romantic Landscapes (24.2/n)
#NorthSea #DWordsworth #RomanticLandscapes
In Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, the journey is described in more sober & dry manner - then a quiet landscape at the mouth of Elbe river.
![Tuesday Night, 9’o clock. Sept. 18th 1798
Over what place does the Moon hang to your eye my dearest Sara ? To me it hangs over the left bank of the Elbe ; and a long trembling road of moonlight reaches from thence up to the stern of our Vessel, & there it ends. We have dropped anchor in the middle of the Stream 30 mile from Cuxhaven, where we arrived this morning at eleven o‘clock, after an unusually fine passage of only 48 hours -.
S.T. Coleridge to Mrs. S.T.Coleridge,
in 'Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge', Vol.1, p.415f [Nr.254]
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vwdie5wej52mvc6545xdmxd5/bafkreigk3cxbzulg7j5mhhwzzapkwsauaaix3q4nytnz4mw3lqp23zt7cm)