A Favorite Poem: Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Ever since I read Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Brit Lit as a first year student at Kenyon College, back in 1972-73, it has been one of my favorite poems--one I've returned to again and again.

Although it's written in a style that seems very old fashioned today, the images in the poem, and the way it opens up a moment into a chain of interlocking thoughts, feels both intimate and contemporary. Coleridge shares his thoughts on a winter evening, as he stares into the fire, focusing on a fluttering bit of ash, a "stranger," caught in the grate. This reminds him of when he was a lonely orphan at boarding school in London, and then he thinks of his own son lying close by in the cradle, hoping that he will grow up healthy in the countryside and have a better childhood.


What really grabs me in this poem, though, is the first line, "the frost performs its secret ministry." Coleridge suggests that the natural world has secrets to tell us, if only we will listen. But it's not just the idea here that captures me--it's the word "frost" on the tongue and how it catches on the "s" sound in each subsequent word--performs, its, secret, ministry. Hey, I just noticed that there's an "s" in every one of those words!

Richard Burton reads Frost at Midnight on YouTube

Part of Frost at Midnight dramatized in a clip from Pandaemonium (2000).

Frost at Midnight is one of Coleridge's "conversation" poems, in which he converses with, or explores his own thoughts, and draws the reader into the conversation. This method would become the foundation of the modern lyric poem, which includes much so-called "confessional" poetry. I was fortunate enough to meet the former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins, a few years ago in Ireland, and he told me of his fondness for the conversation poems, especially Coleridge's "This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison." This surprised me for a few minutes, until I realized that Collins' own conversational poems draw the reader right into an intimacy with his own imagination in a similar way, but in a very contemporary style. See, for instance, is poem, Introduction to Poetry. You can read more of Collins' poems at the Academy of American Poets website.

Here's a photo of yours truly and Billy Collins taken at the John Hewitt Summer School in July 2008 in Armagh, Northern Ireland. The summer school is an annual event that features poetry readings, political discussions, concerts, and lots of good "craic."