3765. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 18 December 1821

3765. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 18 December 1821⁠* 

Keswick Dec 18. 1821

My dear G.

I transmit this thro you, merely that you may have the satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, (whichever it may prove) of seeing what sort of stuff I have produced. [1]  It is by no means as bad as I expected it to prove, from the dogged unwillingness with which I went to work. And when it has lain quietly for some time in my desk, it is not impossible but that with some tinkering, & some addition, it may be made a respectable poem of its kind. Thank Heaven it is off my hands for the present.

We are living in perpetual storms. Surely never was so strange a season. We have pansies, polyanthuses & primroses in blossom, – the thermometer is little below temperate, – & today we have thunder, lightning, hail & rain & wind in such gusts that I suppose Eolus [2]  has got the colic.

God bless you

RS.


Notes

* Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqre/ Exchequer
Endorsement: Decr 18. 1821/ with Ode for Jany 1822
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Note on MS: The letter contained an enclosure to William Shield, Southey’s ode for the New Year; see Southey to William Shield, [18 December 1821], Letter 3766. BACK

[1] Southey’s New Year’s Ode for 1822, as Poet Laureate: ‘Ireland’, published in Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, 2 vols (London, 1829), I, pp. [295]–302. BACK

[2] Aeolus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. BACK

Places mentioned

Keswick (mentioned 1 time)