katyzzzColeridge - Frost at Midnight
January 17th 2008 08:20
Lighthouse
Poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Frost at Midnight
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
`Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.
But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
>From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shall learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
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Comment by Mrs M
Mum's Word
I really liked Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
I used to suggest to my teacher that we take opium to be in the same headspace as the poets when they wrote.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Comment by tlcorbin
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Comment by katyzzz
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My love for poetry came later.
I'll put the Ancient Mariner up some time, but here, for now, I chose one which I considered people would not be familiar with and, at the same time, which I considered brilliantly penned and rather meaningful.
To really appreciate it requires returning to it fairly often and pondering upon just what Coleridge meant.
But, in the meantime, once is enough.
I want to represent works on a very broad basis to begin and select others by the same poet as opportunity and inclination arise.
Nice to see you for a visit, Mrs. M.
Raven, don't lets go down the path of T. S. Eliot, "my head's not right", poetry is meant to be slowly savoured not meant to be swallowed like a too fast meal
And digestion is better if it takes place rather more slowly, I'm sure you are well on the way to comprehension.
Glad that people are liking the poems, it makes it worthwhile doing it and should not be too time intensive when the demands on my time accelerate.
I do not wish to spend too much time blogging, I'm sure you'll understand that but I love having some experimental play.
I've already overindulged myself with my replies.
Comment by Ash
Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories