COLERIDGE IMAGINING 41while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw—gathers th- and s-alliterations, resonates in “while” and “nigh,” and pulses
steadily on “nigh thatch / Smokes” and “sun-thaw,” giving these “lovely shapes
and sounds” to the infant ’s future.
While Dorothy’s keenness kindled to everything around her, Coleridge ends
by recalling that “secret ministry of frost” he began with. Beginning at windless
midnight, the poem looks to the child ’s future, then returns home to nighttime
quiet. It traces a circular cast of mind, moving out into nature and back, as
the verbal music also moves: “silent icicles” chimes with “Quietly shining,”
then “Quietly” returns in “quiet,” joining icicles to the moon. They give back
what they receive, moonlight itself reflected from the sun. These icicles shin-
ing between earth and sky, like clouds that “image” mountain crags, are what
Coleridge promises his son.
It ’s a fine benediction (the boy did become a decent poet), and if you are
S.T.C. you do as well for your next child, blessing him within the local scene.
If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise,
And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies;
Tender warmth at his heart, with these meters to show it,
With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet,—
May crown him with fame, and must win him the love
Of his father on earth and his Father above.
My dear, dear child!
Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S.T. COLERIDGE.The swift three-beat suddenly slows to cherish each accent, “My dear, dear
child!,” and the voice turns “him” to “you.” Finally this father, signing the
body of his poem, rhymes himself as well into the landscape.
Just to make sure, Coleridge had actually named Hartley after an English
philosopher of the mind and senses, and Derwent for a small lake nearby. When
they were six and two, buoyantly he wrote a friend:
My dear Sir,
The river is full, and Lodore is full, and silver Fillets come out of Clouds,
& glitter in every Ravine of all the mountains; and the Hail lies, like Snow,
upon their Tops; & the impetuous Gusts from Borrowdale snatch the water
up high & continually at the bottom of the Lake; it is not distinguishable
from Snow slanting before the wind—and under this seeming Snow-drift
the Sunshine gleams, & over all the hither Half of the Lake it is bright,and
dazzles—a cauldron of melted Silver boiling! It is in very truth a sunny, misty,
cloudy, dazzling, howling, omniform, Day & I have been looking at as pretty