Less than a week into lockdown and Dorothy Wordsworth’s life with her brother in a Somerset village in 1798 is starting to sound exhilarating.

March 28th. Hung out the linen.
March 29th. Coleridge dined with us.
March 30th. Walked I know not where.
March 31st. Walked.
April 1st. Walked by moonlight.
April 2nd. A very high wind. Coleridge came to avoid the smoke; stayed all night. We walked in the wood, and sat under the trees. …
April 3rd. Walked to Crookham, with Coleridge and Wm. …
April 4th. Walked to the sea-side in the afternoon. …
April 16th. New moon. William walked in the wood in the morning. I neglected to follow him. We walked in the park in the evening. …
April 17th. Walked in the wood in the morning. In the evening upon the hill. Cowslips plentiful.
April 18th. Walked in the wood, a fine sunny morning, met Coleridge returned from his brother’s. He dined with us. We drank tea, and then walked with him nearly to Stowey.
April 20th. Walked in the evening up the hill dividing the Coombes. Came home the Crookham way, by the thorn, and the ‘little muddy pond’. Nine o’clock at our return. William all the morning engaged in wearisome composition. …
April 24th. Walked a considerable time in the wood. Sat under the trees, in the evening walked on the top of the hill, found Coleridge on our return and walked on with him towards Stowey.
April 25th. Coleridge drank tea, walked with him to Stowey.
April 26th. William went to have his picture taken. I walked with him. Dined at home. Coleridge and he drank tea.
April 27th. Coleridge breakfasted and drank tea, strolled in the wood in the morning, went with him in the evening through the wood, afterwards walked on the hills…
 
That’s a lot of walking, eating, writing and drinking tea. In March 2020 we walk a bit, but it is advisable around here to have a dog. Without a dog one feels the pressure to be dressed in lycra and trainers and to run, otherwise you risk being mistaken for a psychopath – it’s just a look you get from all the other dog walkers, or rather, it is the look you imagine you are getting. Walking around the streets, that’s OK, but on the common it is different. You have to have a dog. Or a camera with a long lens, but, under the latest police powers you risk arrest or a £30 fine, not that anyone is likely to bother out here – this isn’t London. Still, amateur ornithological photography is neither essential work, nor is it exercise. It is a good thing we have a dog.
 
And then there is tea, so much tea. Matthew and I drink Yorkshire Tea, Linda drinks green tea in the morning, but switches to naturally caffeine-free Rooibos mid-afternoon, the girls drink Earl Grey. Simple things become important. I look at a map of Somerset. Those romantic poets did a lot of serious walking. 
 
And we eat.
 
The one thing we can’t do now is go and meet Coleridge – or anyone for that matter. But at least there is Zoom. Who knew that Zoom would suddenly become the thing that would save us from total isolation? We still have meetings!
 
William Wordsworth and his sister seem to have lived a gently paced life. I’m not so sure about Dorothy, but William always loved and sought solitude. His best known poem from later days at Dove Cottage in the Lake District, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, closes with these lines,
 
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
 
Oft when on my couch I lie, I fall asleep watching comedy re-runs on TV. I can’t help thinking Wordsworth’s use of reclining furniture was more profitable than mine. But I’ve been to Dove Cottage – now a museum – and the couches don’t look that comfortable.  For Wordsworth, the greatest pleasure was not direct experience of the world, but the recollection of his experience in solitude. Recollection is impossible when life is lived at breakneck pace. A poet requires time to waste.
 
All the Hebrew prophets were poets, and prophecy, like all great poetry, is forged in solitude. To see clearly, to eliminate the blur, we have to slow. 
 
Right now, most of us have no option. We are all slowing down and finding a simpler way to live. I think of the words of Moses, the great prophet-leader of Israel, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” 
 
Perhaps now is our great opportunity. We may be poets and prophets yet. 

Chris Denne