Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834)

 In this Blog, I am turning to the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the Romantic Poets of the 18^th/19^th Century, who was celebrated in a Royal Mail Stamp Issue last year.

 Coleridge was born in Ottery St Mary, Devonshire in 1772, the son of a Vicar. He was a great friend of William Wordsworth, and they were founding members of the Romantic Movement. These poets used the ordinary language in certain metrical arrangements and reflected on the interaction of humans with their environment. In Coleridge’s words it was: “the filtering of natural emotion through the human mind in order to create meaning.”

 His most famous poem was the epic, ‘The Rime of Ancient Mariner’.

 Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered bouts of anxiety and depression and was treated with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium addiction. He died in July 1834, and had already written his own epitaph, which was rejected as unsuitable for his final burial place with its handsome tablet, in Highgate New Church; but I include it here.

 Stop, Christian passer-by: Stop, child of God,

And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod

A poet lies, or that which once seemed he –

O, lift a thought in prayer for S.T.C.-

That he who many a year with toil of breath

Found death in life, may here find life in death:

Mercy for praise-to be forgiven for fame-

He asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.

The Poem featured on the Royal Mail stamp was Coleridge’s well-known ‘Frost at Midnight’ originally published in 1798, with the evocative opening lines:

“The Frost performs its secret ministry,

 unhelped by any wind.”

 In this poem, Coleridge meditates on creation by observing the almost magical appearance of frost crystals on a windowpane. Almost as though in conversation, he explores how our minds and imaginations reflect in some way the natural world as he mulls over different topics. He reflects on his own youth before turning to his hopes for his young child's future.

 The poem is of a moderate length and can be accessed on the following link.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43986/frost-at-midnight

I also want to look briefly at one of his shorter poems which recently caught my attention and is ‘Work without Hope’, possibly written at a low moment in his life, so reflecting his mental state.

Work without Hope

Lines Composed 21st February 1825

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—

The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—

And Winter slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,

Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.

Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,

For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!

With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:

And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And Hope without an object cannot live.

'Work without Hope’ is a non-traditional sonnet, of fourteen lines written in two stanzas of 6 and 8 lines. Additionally, the entire narrative is laid out in the first twelve lines and summarized in the final two. 

‘Work without Hope’ describes the ways in which Nature works and the importance of goals, or hopes, to keep in focus.

In the first section of the poem, the narrator observes all manner of natural life around him. This life, including bees, birds, and plants, is all working towards independent goals. The birds sing and the bees make honey - they have both hope and purpose. He is the only part not busy in this forest as he sits and ponders.

 Work without hope will not get the nectar juice flowing - nectar being the classical drink of the Gods - and the source of poetic inspiration.

Similarly, if there is no hope there will never be success.

 Real and effective work needs both hope and a purpose.

Contributed by Roger Verrall, 3^rd August 2021

Sources

The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ed. General Literature Committee, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London. C 1850

Royal Mail Philatelic Bulletin: Poems by Post, April 2020, Royal Mail, London 2020

The New Oxford Book of English Verse, Chosen & Edited by Helen Gardner, OUP Oxford 1972/ Reprint 1987

The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org