Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Biography
Romantic Movement in England
 Best known poems are The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan
 Born 1772 in England
 Bipolar  Opium
 His life spiraled downward
 Dr. Daniel in 1814
 Lived with Gillman family until his death
 Died 1834

Kubla Khan
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of
ice!
And all who heard should see them
there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Summary: A Chinese emperor
named Kubla Khan.
Duty surviving Self-Love
THE ONLY SURE FRIEND
OF DECLINING LIFEA SOLILOQUY
Unchanged within, to see all changed without,
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' Wanings should'st thou fret ?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may'st--shine on ! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite :
And tho' thou notest from thy safe recess
Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are ; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.
Friends will leave; so you have to
care for them, but not as much as
you care for yourself
Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no
No question was asked me--it could not be so !
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try
And to live on be YES; what can NO be ? to die.
We picked this one because it was easy to
understand and it was a concept that even
NATURE'S ANSWER
now no one has grasped.
Is't returned, as 'twas sent ? Is't no worse for the
wear ?
Think first, what you ARE ! Call to mind what you
WERE !
I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope,
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair ?
Make out the invent'ry ; inspect, compare !
Then die--if die you dare !
Frost at Midnight
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw ; whether the eavedrops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Lines 10- 23
We think that this
poem is about
government and
people in power
covering things up
In Köhln, a town of monks and
bones,
And pavements fang'd with
murderous stones
And rags, and hags, and hideous
wenches ;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks !
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers
and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne ;
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
Question: In
your opinion,
what is the
poem, Cologne,
about?
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison ! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness ! They,
meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told ;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun ;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge ;--that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow
leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall ! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight !)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.
This Lime-Tree
Bower my
Prison
This poem is
about fear of
growing old. The
poem was a letter
to his friend.
Human Life
Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished
vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands
unconsciously.
Blank accident ! nothing's anomaly !
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy
state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes,
thy fears,
The counter-weights !--Thy laughter and thy
tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to
create
And to repay the other ! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow
good ?
Why cowl thy face beneath the
mourner's hood ?
Question: A ‘Surplus
We
think this
about
of Nature’s
dread
not
bothering
to you
activity’
what do
blame
nature
for
suppose
he was
human
mistakes
talking about?
Why waste thy sighs, and thy
lamenting voices,
Image of Image, Ghost of
Ghostly Elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st
warm or cold ?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if
thou withhold
These costless shadows of thy
shadowy self ?
Be sad ! be glad ! be neither ! seek,
or shun !
Thou hast no reason why ! Thou
canst have none ;
Thy being's being is contradiction.
Where true Love burns Desire is Love's pure
flame;
It is the reflex of our earthly frame,
That takes its meaning from the nobler part,
And but translates the language of the heart.
We liked this poem
because it is one of
the few love poems
Coleridge ever wrote
Besides being about his love for nature,
What
does
word part
‘betwixt’
what
could
thethe
second
of Frost at
mean?represent?
Midnight
Frost at Midnight
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw ; whether the eave-drops
fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Kubla Khan
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them
there,
Who is And
the all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
What is
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
the
rhyming
scheme?