Christmas America. In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving which appear in his "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." and "Old Christmas". Irving's stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted English Christmas festivities he experienced while staying in Aston Hall, Birmingham, England, that had largely been abandoned, and he used the tract "Vindication of Christmas" (1652) of Old English Christmas traditions, that he had transcribed into his journal as a format for his stories. In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (popularly known by its first
The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem to his childhood home at Ottery and then went to visit William and Dorothy Wordsworth. It was during this time that Coleridge wrote "Fears in Solitude: Written in April 1798, During the Alarm of an Invasion". The poem was included in a joint publication with William Wordsworth called "Lyrical Ballads", which first appeared in 1798 (see 1798 in poetry). Originally, Coleridge intended to place "Lewti or the Circassian Love-chaunt" in the collection. "The Nightingale" was published in seven other editions but was altered little. The poem begins with Milton's line in "Il Penseroso" about nightingales and then corrects it: The