The poem begins with the persona, who is clearly Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself, addressing his wife, Sara. They are sitting affectionately together outside their cottage in Clevedon, in the English county of Somersetshire. It is a quiet and peaceful evening scene. They look up at the evening star and the passing clouds; they can smell the pleasing scent from the nearby bean field, and they listen to the distant murmur of the sea.