BARTRAM'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE 129 



he states that he has found in Bartram's Travels corroboration 

 of an image he has used. The passage in question reads 



. . . when the last rook 

 Beat its straight path along the dusky air 

 Homewards, I blest it ! deeming its black wing 

 (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) 

 Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory, 

 While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still. 

 Flew creeking o'er thy head, . . . (LI. 68-74) 



Coleridge's footnote reads: 



Some months after I had written this line [italicized], it gave me 

 pleasure to find that Bartram had observed the same circumstance of 

 the Savanna Crane. " When these Birds move their wings in flight, 

 their strokes are slow, moderate and regular; and even when at a con- 

 siderable distance or high above us, we plainly hear the quill-feathers: 

 their shafts and webs upon one another creek as the joints or working 

 of a vessel in a tempestuous sea." 



The poem, addressed to Charles Lamb, was written in July, 

 1797, and published in the Annual Anthology in 1800. Since 

 the footnote definitely states that Coleridge read Bartram " some 

 months after " he had written the poem, Ernest Hartley Cole- 

 ridge naturally concluded that Coleridge's " first acquaintance 

 with Bartram belonged rather to the end than to the earlier 

 part of 1797 " and " that the last rook ' flew creeking ' some 

 months before the Savanna crane had floated into his ken." ^ 

 The further " unimpeachable evidence " which he offers in 

 support of his conclusion has been invalidated by Professor 

 Lowes's more recent study of the " Gutch Memorandum Book," 

 and of other documents, especially the early drafts of " Lewti." 

 Professor Lowes comes to the conclusion that the early drafts 

 of " Lewti " date " from the end of 1794 or the beginning of 

 1795. And Coleridge knew Bartram when he wrote them." ^ 



Both E. H. Coleridge and Professor Lowes are concerned 

 especially with the expression " Flew creeking," which, E. H. 

 Coleridge remarks, " is a strange one." Besides, however, the 



' E. H. Coleridge, "' Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the American Botanist Wil- 

 liam Bartram." Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United 

 Kingdom. Second Series. XXVII, 69-92. 



'Xanadu, pp. 513-15. 



