Chapter 6 / Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight
As the poem begins, frost starts creeping through the midnight. Coleridge—writing from his own point of view and starring as his own speaker—stays up alone, hosting a pajama party of one. All the people living in Coleridge's cottage are asleep, and his baby son slumbers in a cradle next to where Coleridge is thinking. He meditates on the intense stillness and silence of the night, which starts to seem kind of disturbing. He imagines the secret goings-on that must be happening in Nature and in the town.
A film of soot flutters on the grate of the fireplace—a phenomenon known as a "stranger." Coleridge thinks it's similar to him, since he's the only person awake in the house and his flickering thoughts are kind of like this fluttering "stranger." It reminds him of how the Spirit (either the human spirit or the Holy Spirit or both) searches for an echo of itself in the world of thought. He starts thinking about when he was a kid in school, day-dreaming and looking at a "stranger" moving on the schoolroom's fireplace, imagining that some real stranger (actually, one of his beloved relatives or friends or someone otherwise familiar to him) would suddenly show up and make things cheerier and less boring. Church bells always made him feel this way too.
Finally, Coleridge starts to think more about his baby son. He hopes that the baby (Hartley Coleridge, by name) will grow up in tune with Nature—unlike Coleridge himself, since he went to school in London. This will be beneficial, since Coleridge believes that God communicates with human beings directly through Nature. It's a kind of "eternal language" that teaches people about the creator's existence. The poem ends with Coleridge predicting that his son, by experiencing God at all times of the year, will be able to find happiness no matter what the season—including winter, when the frost hangs up icicles that reflect moonlight back to the moon.
Lines 1-2
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.
• Right away, we find out what the "frost" from the title is doing. It's freezing stuff at midnight—that's what its "secret ministry" is.
• But what makes this a "ministry" and why is it so "secret"? The fact that the frost is doing its job "at midnight"—when everyone in the village is asleep, except for Coleridge—makes it seem fairly secret, hidden under the cover of darkness.
• The "ministry" bit is a little more complicated though. On the one hand, a "minister" is someone who performs a duty on behalf of someone else (technically, the "Prime Minister" of the United Kingdom performs the duty of running the government on behalf of the Queen or King or, more accurately today, the people). Also, Coleridge probably wants us to think of the frost's task in religious terms—somehow, it's like a Christian minister.
• Who or what does Coleridge intend us to think the frost is working for? Whose minister is the frost? Nature? God?
• Also, who's looking at this frost, and thinking about it? Anyone in particular? Coleridge himself? We'll have to read on to find out.
• The first line establishes the meter Coleridge will hold for the rest of the poem—blank verse, otherwise known as non-rhyming iambic pentameter. Check out "Form and Meter" for more on that.
Lines 2-7
The owlet's cry
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
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.
• It's not just frost that's out and about at this hour. A baby owl is crying out too (aww).
• Quickly, we discover the person who's observing these things—it's Coleridge, himself. How do we know? Well, for starters, we get a first person perspective ("my cottage," "left me").
• Usually, it's not a good idea to mix up our speaker with our poet, but in this case we can safely say they're one and the same. Check out "Speaker" for more on that.
• He's stayed up late (probably watching Conan) and is now listening to the sounds of Nature, while everyone else in his cottage sleeps. ("Inmates" didn't mean prisoners at the time Coleridge was writing—an "inmate" was just someone who lived in a place, like all the family members living in this cottage.)
• His solitude suits "abstruser musings" because "abstruse" ideas and concepts are, by definition, hard to understand. They're not the kinds of things you're going to chat about during the day, or while you're discussing lawn-care techniques with your neighbors. Now, though, it's quiet enough that Coleridge can have a conversation with himself—have a little "me time."
• His baby son (Hartley Coleridge) is the only person in the same room—but he's asleep.
• Coleridge keeps the tone pretty conversational—since this is, after all, one of his "Conversation Poems." Yet, he gets a certain sonic effect—assonance—from repeating the U sounds in "the solitude, which suits/ Abstruser musings." Check out "Sound Check" for more.
Lines 8-10
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness.
• It's quiet—like, really quiet. Instead of making it easier to think, this actually feels kind of disturbing—it "vexes meditation." It's too quiet, in a way.
• Coleridge was known for being an extremely learned philosophical type, into reading dense German thinkers like Kant. So, staying up late and musing on these profound issues was probably one of his hobbies.
Lines 10-13
Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams!
• There's some anaphora here as Coleridge repeats "Sea, hill, and wood" (though he changes it to "Sea, and hill, and wood" the second time). It helps to emphasize how he's still marveling at the silence from the last lines. It's so quiet that none of these different nearby areas is really emanating any sounds.
• Coleridge is impressed by the fact that there are so many things going on at night—creatures out and about in the woods, people who are probably still up, the ocean moving—but they're all "inaudible as dreams." Dreams are inaudible because they're going on in someone's head.
• You can't actually hear them, unless you happen to be the person having the dream (evidently Coleridge had never seen Inception.)
• This also makes the world itself seem sort of dreamlike at night—things are happening, but they don't possess the weight of the actions that take place in broad daylight.
Lines 13-15
[…] the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
• In the extreme quietness of the night, even the fire has stopped moving—except for a film made of soot.
• Also, there's a sonic effect in putting the three syllables of "thin blue flame" and the three syllables of "low-burnt fire" so close together, since the last two syllables of each begin with the same consonants, B and F. This is an odd kind of consonance, mixed in with a tiny bit of alliteration in "that film, which fluttered." Check out "Sound Check" for more.
• So, what about this film on the grate? We're left hanging here, mid-sentence. In fact, we'll have to skip down to a whole new stanza to pick up where we leave off here
Lines 16-18
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
• Coleridge jumps to a new stanza before he finishes this thought It indicates that his mind is going somewhere else, from thinking about how quiet it is to a new line of discussion.
• The film is the only thing that isn't quiet, thanks to its persistent fluttering. This is part of the reason it drags Coleridge's mind away from the emptiness of thought (the "vexe[d] meditation" of the earlier lines), which was provoked by total silence, into some of the "abstruser musings" he's trying to have.
• Since the flame is the only thing that isn't quiet, and he's the only person who's awake and intentionally thinking, he sees that it has "dim sympathies" with him—it's vaguely similar.
• There's assonance with the short I vowel sound here, too: "Gives it dim sympathies." Hit up "Sound Check" for more.
Lines 19-23
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.
• The moving film seems like a "companionable form" for the same reasons stated in the discussion of the last lines—Coleridge is the only person awake, and the film is the only thing moving.
• He starts to see his own thoughts and mind as being similar to the film. (Is it us, or is Coleridge really getting into this pile of dust in his fireplace?) The "idling Spirit" is at rest, watching the mind move (since "the Spirit" is the same as consciousness or awareness, which simply beholds what thoughts are doing). In the same way, the fire in the fireplace is at rest, metaphorically watching the film move.
• The Spirit—according to Coleridge—sees a mirror image of itself in the mind and in the rest of earthly reality. Thoughts are a toy-like imitation of that Spirit, created by it for its own amusement—deep stuff.
• Form-wise, there's alliteration here with "flaps and freaks" (see "Sound Check" for more). A "freak," in this case, is just a wild, unpredictable movement.
Lines 24-27
But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger!
• Coleridge switches to a new stanza here, because he's finished with contemplating how the film (or "stranger" as people in Coleridge' time called it) mimics his own mind. Now, he's going into a reverie, remembering how he used to stare at the "stranger" that would form in his classroom's fi
النتائج (
العربية) 1:
[نسخ]نسخ!
الفصل 6/صقيع Samuel تايلور كولريدج الليلإذ تبدأ القصيدة، يبدأ الصقيع الزاحف من خلال منتصف الليل. كولريدج – الكتابة من وجهة نظر بلده وبطولة كبلدة المتكلم – يبقى وحدها، استضافة طرف بيجامة واحدة. جميع الناس الذين يعيشون في كوخ كوليردج نائماً، وابنه الطفل النوم في مهد المجاور حيث يفكر كولريدج. وأعرب ميديتاتيس مكثفا سكون وسكون الليل، الذي يبدأ على ما يبدو نوع من القلق. يتخيل أنه ما يجري السري الذي يجب أن يحدث في الطبيعة وفي المدينة.فيلم سناج يرتفع في صر الموقد – ظاهرة المعروفة باسم "غريب". كولريدج يعتقد أنها مماثلة له، نظراً لأنه هو الشخص الوحيد مستيقظا في البيت وأفكاره الخفقان نوع من مثل هذا التصفيق "الغريب". ويذكر له كيف يقوم الروح (روح الإنسان أو الروح القدس أو كلاهما) بالبحث عن صدى لنفسها في عالم الفكر. أنه يبدأ في التفكير عندما كان طفلا في المدرسة، يحلم اليوم ويبحث في المتحرك "غريب" على موقد لمدرسيه، تخيل أن بعض غريب حقيقي (في الواقع، واحدة من أقاربه الحبيب أو الأصدقاء أو أي شخص خلاف ذلك مألوفة له) سوف تظهر فجأة وجعل الأمور شيرير وأقل مملة. أجراس الكنيسة دائماً جعلته يشعر بهذه الطريقة أيضا.Finally, Coleridge starts to think more about his baby son. He hopes that the baby (Hartley Coleridge, by name) will grow up in tune with Nature—unlike Coleridge himself, since he went to school in London. This will be beneficial, since Coleridge believes that God communicates with human beings directly through Nature. It's a kind of "eternal language" that teaches people about the creator's existence. The poem ends with Coleridge predicting that his son, by experiencing God at all times of the year, will be able to find happiness no matter what the season—including winter, when the frost hangs up icicles that reflect moonlight back to the moon. Lines 1-2The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind.• Right away, we find out what the "frost" from the title is doing. It's freezing stuff at midnight—that's what its "secret ministry" is. • But what makes this a "ministry" and why is it so "secret"? The fact that the frost is doing its job "at midnight"—when everyone in the village is asleep, except for Coleridge—makes it seem fairly secret, hidden under the cover of darkness. • The "ministry" bit is a little more complicated though. On the one hand, a "minister" is someone who performs a duty on behalf of someone else (technically, the "Prime Minister" of the United Kingdom performs the duty of running the government on behalf of the Queen or King or, more accurately today, the people). Also, Coleridge probably wants us to think of the frost's task in religious terms—somehow, it's like a Christian minister. • منظمة الصحة العالمية أو ما كولريدج تنوي لنا أن نفكر الصقيع تعمل من أجل؟ الوزير الذي هو الصقيع؟ الطبيعة؟ الله؟ • أيضا، الذين يبحثون في هذا الصقيع، والتفكير حول هذا الموضوع؟ أي شخص خاصة؟ كولريدج نفسه؟ سيتعين علينا أن القراءة لمعرفة ذلك. • السطر الأول يحدد المقياس كولريدج ستعقد لبقية القصيدة – الآية فارغة، المعروف باسم بينتاميتير الايامبي غير ناظم. تحقق من "نموذج ومقياس" لمزيد من المعلومات على ذلك.خطوط 2-7البكاء أووليت وجاء بصوت عال – وتعيدنا مرة أخرى! صوت عال قبل. السجناء من بلدي كوخ، كل ذلك في بقية، وقد ترك لي لأن العزلة، التي تناسب أبستروسير التأملات: حفظ ذلك إلى جانبي بلدي الرضع نرعاه النوم سلميا.• أنه ليس الصقيع فقط أن يكون خارجاً وحوالي في هذه الساعة. بومة طفل هو يصرخ جداً (فصيل عبد الواحد). • بسرعة، نكتشف الشخص الذي يحتفل بهذه الأمور — أنها كولريدج، نفسه. كيف لنا أن نعرف؟ حسنا، بالنسبة للمبتدئين، نحصل على منظور شخص الأول ("بلدي المنزلية"، "ترك لي").• عادة، أنها ليست فكرة جيدة لخلط لدينا متكلم مع الشاعر لدينا، ولكن في هذه الحالة يمكن أن نقول بأمان أنهم واحد. تحقق من "اللغة" لمزيد من المعلومات حول هذا.• أنه هو بقي حتى وقت متأخر (ربما مشاهدة كونان) وهو ينام الآن الاستماع إلى الأصوات من الطبيعة، بينما الجميع في منزله. ("السجناء" لم أكن أقصد السجناء في وقت كان يكتب كولريدج – "سجين" كان مجرد شخص عاش في مكان، مثل جميع أفراد الأسرة الذين يعيشون في هذا الكوخ.) • His solitude suits "abstruser musings" because "abstruse" ideas and concepts are, by definition, hard to understand. They're not the kinds of things you're going to chat about during the day, or while you're discussing lawn-care techniques with your neighbors. Now, though, it's quiet enough that Coleridge can have a conversation with himself—have a little "me time." • His baby son (Hartley Coleridge) is the only person in the same room—but he's asleep. • Coleridge keeps the tone pretty conversational—since this is, after all, one of his "Conversation Poems." Yet, he gets a certain sonic effect—assonance—from repeating the U sounds in "the solitude, which suits/ Abstruser musings." Check out "Sound Check" for more.Lines 8-10'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness.• It's quiet—like, really quiet. Instead of making it easier to think, this actually feels kind of disturbing—it "vexes meditation." It's too quiet, in a way. • Coleridge was known for being an extremely learned philosophical type, into reading dense German thinkers like Kant. So, staying up late and musing on these profound issues was probably one of his hobbies.Lines 10-13Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams!• There's some anaphora here as Coleridge repeats "Sea, hill, and wood" (though he changes it to "Sea, and hill, and wood" the second time). It helps to emphasize how he's still marveling at the silence from the last lines. It's so quiet that none of these different nearby areas is really emanating any sounds. • Coleridge is impressed by the fact that there are so many things going on at night—creatures out and about in the woods, people who are probably still up, the ocean moving—but they're all "inaudible as dreams." Dreams are inaudible because they're going on in someone's head.• You can't actually hear them, unless you happen to be the person having the dream (evidently Coleridge had never seen Inception.) • This also makes the world itself seem sort of dreamlike at night—things are happening, but they don't possess the weight of the actions that take place in broad daylight.Lines 13-15[…] the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,• In the extreme quietness of the night, even the fire has stopped moving—except for a film made of soot. • Also, there's a sonic effect in putting the three syllables of "thin blue flame" and the three syllables of "low-burnt fire" so close together, since the last two syllables of each begin with the same consonants, B and F. This is an odd kind of consonance, mixed in with a tiny bit of alliteration in "that film, which fluttered." Check out "Sound Check" for more.• So, what about this film on the grate? We're left hanging here, mid-sentence. In fact, we'll have to skip down to a whole new stanza to pick up where we leave off here
Lines 16-18
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
• Coleridge jumps to a new stanza before he finishes this thought It indicates that his mind is going somewhere else, from thinking about how quiet it is to a new line of discussion.
• The film is the only thing that isn't quiet, thanks to its persistent fluttering. This is part of the reason it drags Coleridge's mind away from the emptiness of thought (the "vexe[d] meditation" of the earlier lines), which was provoked by total silence, into some of the "abstruser musings" he's trying to have.
• Since the flame is the only thing that isn't quiet, and he's the only person who's awake and intentionally thinking, he sees that it has "dim sympathies" with him—it's vaguely similar.
• There's assonance with the short I vowel sound here, too: "Gives it dim sympathies." Hit up "Sound Check" for more.
Lines 19-23
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.
• The moving film seems like a "companionable form" for the same reasons stated in the discussion of the last lines—Coleridge is the only person awake, and the film is the only thing moving.
• He starts to see his own thoughts and mind as being similar to the film. (Is it us, or is Coleridge really getting into this pile of dust in his fireplace?) The "idling Spirit" is at rest, watching the mind move (since "the Spirit" is the same as consciousness or awareness, which simply beholds what thoughts are doing). In the same way, the fire in the fireplace is at rest, metaphorically watching the film move.
• The Spirit—according to Coleridge—sees a mirror image of itself in the mind and in the rest of earthly reality. Thoughts are a toy-like imitation of that Spirit, created by it for its own amusement—deep stuff.
• Form-wise, there's alliteration here with "flaps and freaks" (see "Sound Check" for more). A "freak," in this case, is just a wild, unpredictable movement.
Lines 24-27
But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger!
• Coleridge switches to a new stanza here, because he's finished with contemplating how the film (or "stranger" as people in Coleridge' time called it) mimics his own mind. Now, he's going into a reverie, remembering how he used to stare at the "stranger" that would form in his classroom's fi
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