{"id":5842,"date":"2014-04-30T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T14:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/?p=5842"},"modified":"2014-04-23T14:16:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T21:16:01","slug":"april-is-national-poetry-month-this-poem-will-make-grown-men-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/april-is-national-poetry-month-this-poem-will-make-grown-men-cry\/","title":{"rendered":"April is National Poetry Month: This Poem Will Make Grown Men Cry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Coleridge\"<\/a>I was reading this article on Huffington Post, This Poem Will Make Grown Men Cry<\/a><\/em>, and I thought you might be interested in reading it, too.\u00a0 – Jane Carlin, library director<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

“Frost at Midnight”<\/strong>
\nby Samuel Taylor Coleridge<\/p>\n

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
\nUnhelped by any wind. The owlet\u2019s cry
\nCame loud\u2014and hark, again! loud as before.
\nThe inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
\nHave left me to that solitude, which suits
\nAbstruser musings: save that at my side
\nMy cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
\n\u2019Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
\nAnd vexes meditation with its strange
\nAnd extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
\nThis populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
\nWith all the numberless goings-on of life,
\nInaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
\nLies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
\nOnly that film, which fluttered on the grate,
\nStill flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
\nMethinks, its motion in this hush of nature
\nGives it dim sympathies with me who live,
\nMaking it a companionable form,
\nWhose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
\nBy its own moods interprets, every where
\nEcho or mirror seeking of itself,
\nAnd makes a toy of Thought.<\/p>\n

But O! how oft,
\nHow oft, at school, with most believing mind,
\nPresageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
\nTo watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
\nWith unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
\nFrost at Midnight
\nOf my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
\nWhose bells, the poor man\u2019s only music, rang
\nFrom morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
\nSo sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
\nWith a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
\nMost like articulate sounds of things to come!
\nSo gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
\nLulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
\nAnd so I brooded all the following morn,
\nAwed by the stern preceptor\u2019s face, mine eye
\nFixed with mock study on my swimming book:
\nSave if the door half opened, and I snatched
\nA hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
\nFor still I hoped to see the stranger\u2019s face,
\nTownsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
\nMy play-mate when we both were clothed alike!<\/p>\n

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
\nWhose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
\nFill up the interspers\u00e9d vacancies
\nAnd momentary pauses of the thought!
\nMy babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
\nWith tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
\nAnd think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
\nAnd in far other scenes! For I was reared
\nIn the great city, pent \u2019mid cloisters dim,
\nAnd saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
\nBut thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
\nBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
\nOf ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
\nWhich image in their bulk both lakes and shores
\nAnd mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
\nThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
\nOf that eternal language, which thy God
\nUtters, who from eternity doth teach
\nHimself in all, and all things in himself.
\nGreat universal Teacher! he shall mould
\nThy spirit, and by giving make it ask.<\/p>\n

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
\nWhether the summer clothe the general earth
\nWith greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
\nBetwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
\nOf mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
\nSmokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
\nHeard only in the trances of the blast,
\nOr if the secret ministry of frost
\nShall hang them up in silent icicles,
\nQuietly shining to the quiet Moon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading this article on Huffington Post, This Poem Will Make Grown Men Cry, and I thought you might be interested in reading it, too.\u00a0 – Jane Carlin, library director “Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Frost … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-is-national-poetry-month"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5842"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5901,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842\/revisions\/5901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/collinsunbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}