Frost at Midnight

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Stanzas One and Two

One night when the poet’s mind was obsessed with

philosophical, subtle, thoughts, and his little son was
lying asleep in his cradle beside his bed, the poet
looks out of the cottage window and finds the
atmosphere covered with frost. It is about midnight
and Nature around his cottage is calm and quiet to
the last degree.
Stanzas One and Two

The poet, looking at the frost in the night

atmosphere outside his cottage, says to himself:
The frost is doing its secret service, in the scheme
of Nature. It is not being helped by any wind. The
night is quiet, yet the owlet’s loud hoot can be
heard. It is as loud as the earlier one. He says all
the inmates of his cottage are at rest and asleep.
They have left him alone to enjoy the peace of this
solitude that suits his philosophical tendencies. He
says only his cradled little son is sleeping beside
him peacefully. The poet further says that the
night atmosphere is so calm that its strange,
extreme, silence disturbs his thoughtful mind,
through its strangeness.
Stanzas One and Two

The sea, the hill, the wood, and the village of

countless activities of human life all are as silent as
dreams. Even the thin blue flame seems to be asleep
and still on his slowly dying fire. The poet says in this
silence of Nature, its motion reflects its silent
sympathy with him who is still awake and look upon
it as an agreeable form. His unoccupied spirit
interprets its little capricious movements in the light
of its own moods. For it seeks its echo or reflection
everywhere and plays with a thought as if it were a
plaything.
Stanza Three

In the second stanza of ‘Frost At Midnight’, the

mind of the poet travels back to past, being
stirred by the associations of the thin film of light.
He remembers that at Christ Hospital School, he
would look on the fireplace in expectation of that
thin film of light. He believed that the film was a
sign of a visitor to see him the next morning. He
says, and often, having seen that film, he was
filled with the sweet vision of his birth-place, and
of the old church-tower whose bells produced
the only music for the poor men of the place.
Stanza Three

Those bells rang from morning to evening on a

hot fair-day. They rang so sweet that even their
memory at school moved his being and filled
him with passionate joy. He says their tinkling
sounds fill his ears like the clear sounds of the
prophecy of future events. So, he kept looking
over that film and imagined sweet things till he
fell asleep, and sleep prolonged his sweet
dreams. The next morning, his mind would
become occupied with the thoughts of the visit
of his some friends or relatives.
Stanza Three

Being afraid of the stern schoolmaster, he would

also pretend to be reading, and fixed his eyes on his
book. But his thoughts were concerned with the
expectation of a visitor. So the words in the book
would just swim before his eyes. If the door opened
a little, he would hastily cast a glance at it. His heart
would leap up in excitement. And he would expect
to see the expected visitor’s face. He hoped to see a
townsman, an aunt, a beloved sister, or a playmate
of childhood days when they have dressed alike.
Stanza Three
• In this stanza of ‘Frost At Midnight’, the poet again turns
his attention to his little son asleep in the cradle and tells
that dear baby, your gentle breathing is audible in this
deep silence. He tells his little son that they fill up the
spaces of his vacant moods and also those of the
momentary pauses in his thoughts. He says that he was
brought up in the great city of London; he was obliged to
live in rooms of dim light, and so saw nothing beautiful
except the sky and the stars. But, you, my baby son, shall
be brought up here in the countryside. Here you shall
wander as freely as the breeze, along lake-margins and
sandy beaches, beneath the steep, rugged, rocks of
ancient hills, and clouds which by virtue of their vast,
pliable gases, put on the shapes of lakes, seas, and rugged
rocks.
Stanza Three

• Thus, you, my child, shall see the lovely shapes and

hear the intelligible sounds of Nature’s eternal
language uttered by God: He lives in eternal Heaven,
yet reflects Himself in all things and creatures. He also
contains all things in Himself. As Nature, he is the great
universal teacher to living creatures: He shall mold your
spirit through his influences. He shall give you Nature
sweet company whose delights make you ask for more
and more.
Stanza Five

• In this final stanza of ‘Frost At Midnight’,

the poet says that he will rear him that is
Hartley Coleridge in the open atmosphere
of Nature. The objects of Nature will cast
their influences on him. They will also be
his object-lessons. Nature is a great teacher
to mankind. She will shape and develop his
personality in a natural manner.
Stanza Five

• In Nature’s lap, Hartley will come to love all

the seasons for the sake of their individual
gifts and characteristics. He will also love
the time when rain-drops fall from the
caves, or when such water drops are frozen
by the frost and seen hanging from the
edges of the thatched-cottage roof, in the
quiet moonlight.