THE Museum of Somerset in Taunton is continuing its popular programme of spotlight loans featuring national treasures with local connections.

The British Library is lending the unique manuscript of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s extraordinary poem Kubla Khan together with the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Coleridge.

The loan between this Saturday (March 12) and June 25 is part of the British Library’s Treasures on Tour initiative supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust.

The exhibition celebrates the display of the manuscript in the county where the poem was written in a lonely farmhouse at Culbone in 1797.

Coleridge said he imagined the poem in “a sort of Reverie brought on by two grains of Opium”.

But before he had finished writing it down he was interrupted by the Person from Porlock, and left Kubla Khan as the most famous of all unfinished poems.

Its evocation of Xanadu and of "caverns measureless to man" has been an inspiration for artists, writers and musicians ever since.

The exhibition will tell the story of the time Coleridge spent living in and near the Quantock Hills, from 1797 to 1799, his relationship with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and the legacy of his writing.

It will be accompanied by a programme of talks and guided walks that further explore the Somerset landscapes Coleridge loved and that helped to inspire poems including Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A new workshop is also being developed that will engage schools with the exhibition through creative writing and drama.

Tom Mayberry, chief executive of the South West Heritage Trust, said: “We’re delighted to be working with the British Library to display this wonderful and enigmatic poem in Somerset, 200 years after it was written.

"The Somerset landscape lies near the heart of Coleridge’s poetic achievement and it was in West Somerset that most of his best-known poetry was written. This is a real homecoming.”

Alexandra Ault, lead curator of manuscripts 1601-1850 at the British Library, said: “The Somerset landscape was one of Coleridge’s great inspirations and we are thrilled to loan the Kubla Khan manuscript and 1798 edition of Lyrical Ballads from the Library's collections to this exhibition.

"We hope visitors to the Museum of Somerset enjoy seeing the manuscript on display within the area where Coleridge enjoyed such intense creativity.”

Spotlight loans have been an important part of the museum’s programme in recent years. Loans have included the Alfred Jewel from the Ashmolean Museum, the Becket Casket from the Victoria and Albert Museum and the portrait of Henry VII from the National Portrait Gallery.

A talk about Coleridge and his West Country connections will be given by Tom Mayberry, author of Coleridge and Wordsworth in the West Country, on May 19.

Short gallery tours will also be running monthly, from March to June, where visitors can find out more about the objects and artworks on display.