During the spring and summer of 1795, Coleridge made several excursions to Somersetshire. The poem ‘Brockley Coomb’, in Effusions XXI of Poems, 1796, is a short verse inspired by the landscape of the area. Brockley Combe is the most famous of all the wooden gorges in limestone hills, eight miles south of Bristol. The poem offers an accurate, detailed description of the site and the view:
Lines composed while climbing the left ascent of Brockley Coomb, May 1795 With many a pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb's ascent: sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock That on green plots o'er precipices browse: From the deep fissures of the naked rock The Yew-tree bursts! Beneath its dark green boughs ('Mid which the May-thorn blends its blossoms white) Where broad smooth stones jut out in mossy seats, I rest: -and now have gained the topmost site. Ah! what a luxury of landscape meets My gaze! Proud towers, and Cots more dear to me, Elm-shadowed Fields, and prospect-bounding Sea. Deep sighs my lonely heart: I drop the tear: Enchanting spot! O were my Sara here.