John Chester

John Chester was a local Stowey man. Uneducated and shy, he regularly accompanied Coleridge and his literary friends on their walks (William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, the Wedgwood potter brothers, William and Dorothy Wordsworth of Alfoxden, Holford, Humphry Davy, Tom Poole the Stowey tanner), but was never allowed to enter their charmed circle. He was in awe of Coleridge but the two were devoted to each other.


John Chester
Dun-breeched, brown jacketed.
Apple-cheeked, shambling, stumbling to keep pace.
Hazlitt whispers he should carry a stick in his mouth,
Wordsworth, that he sniffs each Quantock oak then lifts a leg.

John Chester
A drab country sparrow, stalking gaudy cockatoos.
His workaday chirrup no match for their exotic chatter.
Failing to fathom lofty metaphysics,
Fearing to step on a stick lest he break the faery trance.
John Chester
Silent, jaw hanging loose, thinking Coleridge a wondrous man.

John Chester
Steers Coleridge’s hand from a poisoned mushroom.
Slips money to the Lime Street butcher for penniless Sara,
Snares coneys to fill Dorothy’s Alfoxden pie.

John Chester
Sipping laudanum to vainly delve the labyrinths of Coleridge’s skull.
I would be John Chester
Dig the poet’s patch, cradle his throbbing face, bark, carry a bone.
I would be John Chester
for one half-hour of Coleridge’s company.