Note 382:2 — AN ODE TO THE RAIN[382:2]

First published in the Morning Post (?), Oct. 7, 1802: included in Sibylline Leaves, 1817: in Literary Remains, 1836, i. 54-6. First collected in 1844. In Literary Remains the poem is dated 1809, but in a letter to J. Wedgwood, Oct. 20, 1802, Coleridge seems to imply that the Ode to the Rain had appeared recently in the Morning Post. A MS. note of Mrs. H. N. Coleridge, included in other memoranda intended for publication in Essays on His Own Times, gives the date, 'Ode to Rain, October 7'. The issue for October 7 is missing in the volume for 1802 preserved in the British Museum, and it may be presumed that it was in that number the Ode to the Rain first appeared. It is possible that the 'Ode' was written on the morning after the unexpected arrival of Charles and Mary Lamb at Greta Hall in August, 1802.