Frost at Midnight

Frost at Midnight

The frost performs its secret ministry
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Come 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.
'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, 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 blush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
To which the living spirit in our frame,
That loves not to behold a lifeless thing,
Transfuses its own pleasures, its own will.

S.T. Coleridge (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

3:43, p. 346

1829.01.31