| The Frost performs its secret ministry, 1
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again! loud as before.
...........
For I was reared 51
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, 56
.......
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs 8
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! 13
.........
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, 65
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch 68
.......
Or if the secret ministry of frost 72
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. 74
February, 1798
Summary: As the frost “performs its secret ministry” in the windless night, an owlet’s cry twice pierces the silence. The “inmates” of the speaker’s cottage are all asleep, and the speaker sits alone, solitary except for the “cradled infant” sleeping by his side. The calm is so total that the silence becomes distracting, and all the world of “sea, hill, and wood, / This populous village!” seems “inaudible as dreams.” The thin blue flame of the fire burns without flickering; only the film on the grate flutters, which makes it seem “companionable” to the speaker, almost alive—stirred by “the idling Spirit.” “But O!” the speaker declares; as a child he often watched “that fluttering stranger” on the bars of his school window and daydreamed about his birthplace and the church tower whose bells rang so sweetly on Fair-day. These things lured him to sleep in his childhood, and he brooded on them at school, only pretending to look at his books—unless, of course, the door opened, in which case he looked up eagerly, hoping to see “Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, / My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!” Addressing the “Dear Babe, that sleep[s] cradled” by his side, whose breath fills the silences in his thought, the speaker says that it thrills his heart to look at his beautiful child. He enjoys the thought that although he himself was raised in the “great city, pent ’mid cloisters dim,” his child will wander in the rural countryside, by lakes and shores and mountains, and his spirit shall be molded by God, who will “by giving make it [the child] ask.” All seasons, the speaker proclaims, shall be sweet to his child, whether the summer makes the earth green or the robin redbreast sings between tufts of snow on the branch; whether the storm makes “the eave-drops fall” or the frost’s “secret ministry” hangs icicles silently, “quietly shining to the quiet Moon.”
Form: Like many Romantic verse monologues of this kind (Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” is a notable example), “Frost at Midnight” is written in blank verse, a term used to describe unrhymed lines metered in iambic pentameter.
Commentary: The speaker of “Frost at Midnight” is generally held to be Coleridge himself, and the poem is a quiet, very personal restatement of the abiding themes of early English Romanticism: the effect of nature on the imagination (nature is the Teacher that “by giving” to the child’s spirit also makes it “ask”); the relationship between children and the natural world (“thou, my babe! shall wander like a breeze...”); the contrast between this liberating country setting and city (“I was reared / In the great city, pent ’mid cloisters dim”); and the relationship between adulthood and childhood as they are linked in adult memory.
However, while the poem conforms to many of the guiding principles of Romanticism, it also highlights a key difference between Coleridge and his fellow Romantics, specifically Wordsworth. Wordsworth, raised in the rustic countryside, saw his own childhood as a time when his connection with the natural world was at its greatest; he revisited his memories of childhood in order to soothe his feelings and provoke his imagination. Coleridge, on the other hand, was raised in London, “pent ’mid cloisters dim,” and questions Wordsworth’s easy identification of childhood with a kind of automatic, original happiness; instead, in this poem he says that, as a child, he “saw naught lovely but the stars and sky” and seems to feel the lingering effects of that alienation. In this poem, we see how the pain of this alienation has strengthened Coleridge’s wish that his child enjoy an idyllic Wordsworthian upbringing “by lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags / Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds...” Rather than seeing the link between childhood and nature as an inevitable, Coleridge seems to perceive it as a fragile, precious, and extraordinary connection, one of which he himself was deprived.
In expressing its central themes, “Frost at Midnight” relies on a highly personal idiom whereby the reader follows the natural progression of the speaker’s mind as he sits up late one winter night thinking. His idle observation gives the reader a quick impression of the scene, from the “silent ministry” of the frost to the cry of the owl and the sleeping child. Coleridge uses language that indicates the immediacy of the scene to draw in the reader; for instance, the speaker cries “Hark!” upon hearing the owl, as though he were surprised by its call. The objects surrounding the speaker become metaphors for the work of the mind and the imagination, so that the fluttering film on the fire grate plunges him into the recollection of his childhood. His memory of feeling trapped in the schoolhouse naturally brings him back into his immediate surroundings with a surge of love and sympathy for his son. His final meditation on his son’s future becomes mingled with his Romantic interpretation of nature and its role in the child’s imagination, and his consideration of the objects of nature brings him back to the frost and the icicles, which, forming and shining in silence, mirror the silent way in which the world works upon the mind; this revisitation of winter’s frosty forms brings the poem full circle.
Coleridge on Romantic Nature:
Nature is a key element amongst the writers of the Romantic period. From man's struggle to get back to Nature through Art to his painful experiences with the elements, Nature's presence abounds during this period of time. The best example of Nature in writing can be found in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Frost at Midnight and The Aeolian Harp. This paper will examine these two masterpieces and provide examples of man's struggle and experiences with Nature and how man's presence is essential to its beauty. In Coleridge's Frost at Midnight, Coleridge discusses being a prisoner to the solitude and tranquility that Nature provides, being alone with only his babe to keep him company. Being alone with Nature seems to bring him great joy, and the prospect that his child shall inherit all this beauty is overwhelming to him. Nature is a very important subject during the Romantic period of writing. Samuel Taylor Coleridge through his poems Frost at Midnight and The Aeolian Harp, captures the true essence of Nature. Through his writings we get a much greater picture of his love affair and experiences in Nature. Without man there would be no beauty for there would be no one to experience it all. Painfully human because though we may be a part of Nature we can never fully understand the beauty and complexities of it all. In "Frost at Midnight," Samuel Coleridge describes a serene night at his cottage at Nether Stowey. Coleridge mentions the frost that "performs its secret ministry (1)" at nighttime while the owl calls. Meanwhile, the rest of the "inmates"(4) in his cottage remain in a peaceful slumber. His son Hartley, slept just at his side. Alone with his thoughts, Coleridge observes the calmness of the environment that surrounds him. The calm "disturbs composed vexes meditation" (9) because of the "extreme silentness" (10). Coleridge's diction conveys a tranquil and contemplative tone. To add to the stillness of the setting Coleridge describes the "thin blue flame" in his fire "that quivers not" (13-14). Typically, a fire is described by the flames that dance and flicker, but Coleridge's fire is still and subdued. The only other thing that is "unquiet" (16) is the film that is hanging from the grate. This film, or stranger, allegedly foreshadows the arrival of an absent friend. Coleridge finds companionship with the film, because together the are "in motion in [the] hush of nature" (17).
Coleridge reminisces back to his school days, and remembers gazing at the stranger with "unclosed lids" (27) thinking of his birthplace, particularly the old church tower and the bells that played throughout the day. Coleridge would eventually fall asleep during his daydream, only to "prolong [his] dreams!" (35). While in class Coleridge accounts fixing his eye on his book "with mock study," (38) longing "to see the stranger's face" (41). Seeing this stranger in his dreams would conjure up vivid memories of his home, and possibly give him hope of seeing a "townsman, or aunt, or [his] sister more beloved" (42) who was Coleridge's childhood playmate. It seems to me Coleridge had a severe case of homesickness while he was at school. Perhaps he felt alone, and longed to his friends and family. Coleridge than shifts the subject of the poem to his young infant cradled beside him "whose gentle breathings" (45) filled the "vacancies and momentary pauses of the thought" (46-47). Coleridge rejoices because his child will have the opportunity to "learn far other lore, and in far other scenes" (50-51). Coleridge indicates that his child will grow up among nature, and will be able to "wander like a breeze by lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags and beneath the clouds" (54-56). Colerigde's son will learn from God, the "universal Teacher!" (64) while Coleridge himself was educated in the city far from nature. As Coleridge concludes his poem he addresses his son, and speaks optimistically concerning the future of his son. Coleridge declares that "all seasons shall be sweet to thee," (65) regardless if it is the "summer [that clothes] the general earth with greenness" (66-67) or the winter when the "redbreast sit and sing betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch" (67-68). These delicately described seasons illustrate strong images. Furthermore, Coleridge continues and states "whether the eave-drops fall or if the secret ministry of frost shall hang them up in silent icicles" (70-73). Coleridge closes the poem with another reference to frost as a "secret ministry" (72). Coleridge personifies the ice, and conjures up images of frost that travels silently through a town at midnight leaving its frozen mark.
`Frost at Midnight ' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a conversational poem , a form quite popular in the romantic age . In the poem , the poet , in a moment of solitude , gives voice to his most intimate feelings and expresses his beliefs about nature and the significant role it plays in the life of man . In fact , the poem is a very personal restatement of the abiding themes of English Romanticism . Coleridge dwells upon the effect of the beauty of nature on poetic imagination , the kinship of nature and man who endlessly seeks his own self and identity in the objects of the natural world , the role of Mother Nature in nourishing a child , the striking contrast between the claustrophobic city and the wide and open countryside where the mind can roam free . All these are typically romantic concerns that come up in the poet 's mind and finds expression in the verse monologue . This paper will attempt to analyze and understand these Romantic beliefs of Coleridge as expressed in the `Frost at Midnight . The poet 's almost reverential love for the beauty of nature finds expression in the opening line of the poem: ``The Frost performs its secret ministry / Unhelped by any wind ' The frost is perceived as performing a secret and silent religious rite , magical and momentous in import . The silence of the night , the almost extinguished fire, the hooting of a solitary owl and the inaudible life surrounding the poet moves him rapture of bliss until he ecstatically cries out: Sea , hill , and wood , This populous village ! Sea , and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams ! The first twenty-three lines of the poem in fact sets the mood for the poet 's `abstruser musings ' that takes him down in an evocative journey down the memory lane and makes him dwell on the mystery of Mother Nature. The `strange and extreme silentness ' allows Coleridge 's mind to roam freely seeking its own reflection in the objects of nature . The poet finds in the thin blue fluttering flame of an almost extinguished fire, a companion of his mind 's wanderings. That the poet imposes his own subjectivity and feelings on this fluttering flame is a typically romantic attitude. We find such personal interpretation of nature also in other romantics , for instance , in P . B . Shelley 's poems like To a Skylark or Ode to the West Wind or Wordsworth 's Daffodils . The `idling spirit ' of the poet , carried away by the power of its own passion, everywhere finds an ``echo or mirror seeking of itself / and makes a
toy of thought '
In Coleridge’s poem, “Frost at Midnight,” in the true form of romanticism, the speaker considers childhood—both his own and that of the infant sleeping next to him—and discusses how nature and children are intertwined and, in many ways, dependent on one another. Interestingly, in this poem the natural world outside of the speaker’s home reflects the infant’s state of deep sleep and the reader is told, ‘Tis calm indeed! So calm that it disturbs / and vexes meditation with its strange / And extreme stillness. Sea, hill, and wood…” (lines 5-10). Even before the poem and its themes have begun to unravel the reader is offered this clear connection between childhood and the natural world as the image of an ice-encrusted landscape deep in slumber is complimented by that of a deeply sleeping baby. These thoughts, which come to speaker because of the stillness of the outside world and the sleeping baby cause him to reflect about his own childhood and he mourns that he was not able to experience the important connection to the natural world because, as he puts it, “For I was reared / In the great city, pent ‘mid cloisters dim, / And saw naught lovely but the sky and starts” (lines 55-57). As an adult, the speaker recognizes the importance of having an immediate and tangible connection to the natural world and vows that his infant “Shalt wander like a breeze / By lakes and sandy shores…” (lines 58-59) and will be exposed to the natural elements so that he may not experience the melancholy that speaker has when considering how he was denied this exposure. In “Frost at Midnight” by Coleridge, the speaker promises his child that he will understand nature and, “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” (lines 60-64). With this closing thought the speaker relates children and the natural world to God as well and demonstrates how seeing, hearing, and experiencing natural will allow his infant to be closer to God and understand him better. Because of this connection of the natural world, the child, and God, the speaker maintains that “all seasons shall be sweet” (67) to the young child as long as this relationship continues. In this poem it is clear that the speaker (perhaps because of his early lack of immediate connection to nature) realizes that there is something sacred about a child having direct access to the natural world. He seems to believe that this proximity will allow the infant to experience God and the concept in romanticism literature and poetry of unity between the human and natural worlds. Even though the speaker recognizes that there is a city outside of his quiet house that will eventually envelop the infant as he reaches adulthood, this foreknowledge does not taint the hopeful theme of the poem and states that the child, with access to nature, will go on to develop an almost magical connection with the world around him.
Frost at Midnight was a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in February 1798. Part of the conversation poems, the poem discusses Coleridge's childhood experience in a negative manner and emphasizes the need to be raised in the countryside. The poem expresses hope that Coleridge's son, Hartley, would be able to experience a childhood that he could not and become a true "child of nature". The view of nature within the poem has a strong Christian element in that Coleridge believed that nature represents a physical presence of God's word and that the poem is steeped in Coleridge's understanding of Neoplatonism. In terms of criticism, Frost at Midnight has been well received by critics and seen as the best of the conversation poems.
Background
Frost at Midnight was written February 1798 (see 1798 in poetry) when he described to Thomas Poole aspects of his childhood at Christ's Hospital grammar school that are similar to the content of the poem. The rest comes from Coleridge's experience with his friend, William Wordsworth. It was Wordsworth who provided Coleridge with a detailed description of the Lake District which served as a basis for Coleridge's description of the place. The relationship between Coleridge and Wordsworth was a close friendship, and Coleridge helped rewrite many of Wordsworth's poems during this time. Frost at Midnight was later connected to many of Wordsworth's poems. The poem was published in a small work containing his other poems France: An Ode and Fears in Solitude. The poem was intended to be added to Coleridge's third edition of his collected poems, but a dispute with Charles Lloyd, a fellow writer, and Joseph Cottle, their mutual publisher, altered his plans.[2] The poem was later collected in Sibylline Leaves, published in 1817 (see 1817 in poetry). It was rewritten many times and there are seven different versions printed. Of these revisions, the 1798 edition differs from the others in the final six lines which were removed in later versions. Of this removal, Coleridge explains in George Beaumont's copy of the poems. "The last six lines I omit because they destroy the rondo, and return upon itself of the Poem. Poems of this kind & length ought to lie coiled with its tail round its head."
Themes
The narrator comes to an understanding of nature after being isolated and left to his thoughts. Nature becomes a comforter, but the narrator remembers his loneliness during childhood.[8] During his final year at Christ's Hospital, Coleridge completed a poem he titled "On Quitting School for College" for a school exercise. In the poem, he describes his time at the school in as a pleasant experience. However, Frost at Midnight redefines the experience as one that deprived him of the countryside. There is another quality to Coleridge's retelling of his childhood experience: he adds supernatural descriptions to the common scenes of his youth. In particular, the church bells are able to make a promise of a better life.[10] The Gothic elements of the poem connect it to many of his other works, including Ancient Mariner, "Ballad of the Dark Ladie", Fears in Solitude, France: An Ode, The Nightingale, "Three Graves", and "Wanderings of Cain". Within the poem, the narrator expresses his hope that his child, Hartley Coleridge, will experience a life connected to nature. This is similar to what Coleridge's friend William Wordsworth does with the narrator of Tintern Abbey, a poem composed later that year. Many of the feelings of the narrator for his child are connected to Coleridge's sonnet "To a Friend Who Asked, How I Felt When the Nurse Presented My Infant to Me". The ideas about nature in This Lime-Tree Bower are transformed into the basis for an education, and Hartley is to learn through nature in an innocent way. Unlike Wordsworth's nature, Coleridge's has a Christian presence and nature is a physical presence of God's word. Coleridge's understanding of God is Neoplatonic and emphasizes a need to experience the divine knowledge. Like many of the conversation poems, Frost at Midnight touches on Coleridge's idea of "One Life", which connects mankind to nature and to God. Touching on themes that come up in The Eolian Harp, Religious Musings, and other poems, the poem produces the image of a life that the narrator's child will experience in the countryside. The boy would become a "child of nature" and raised free of the constraints found in philosophical systems produced by those like William Godwin.
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