Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge-Richard Burton

[ti:Frost at Midnight] [ar:Richard Burton] [al:The Richard Burton Poetry Collection] [by:] [offset:0] [00:00.00]Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Richard Burton [00:00.83]The Frost performs it's secret ministry [00:03.48]Unhelped by any wind [00:05.68] [00:06.92]The owlet's cry [00:07.97]Came loud and hark again loud as before [00:11.36] [00:13.00]The inmates of my cottage all at rest [00:15.15]Have left me to that solitude which suits [00:17.72]Abstruser musings save that at my side [00:21.48]My cradled infant slumbers peacefully [00:24.14] [00:25.90]'Tis calm indeed so calm that it disturbs [00:29.70]And vexes meditation with its strange [00:32.12]And extreme silentness [00:34.06] [00:35.30]Sea hill and wood [00:38.43] [00:39.16]This populous village [00:40.90]Sea and hill and wood [00:43.59]With all the numberless goings on of life [00:46.42]Inaudible as dreams the thin blue flame [00:52.70]Lies on my low burnt fire and quivers not [00:55.86] [00:56.99]Only that film which fluttered on the grate [00:59.18]Still flutters there the sole unquiet thing [01:02.43] [01:03.22]Methinks its motion in this hush of nature [01:06.03]Gives it dim sympathies with me who live [01:08.77]Making it a companionable form [01:11.03]Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit [01:14.29]By its own moods interprets every where [01:17.63]Echo or mirror seeking of itself [01:20.34] [01:21.28]And makes a toy of Thought [01:22.95] [01:25.68]But O how oft [01:27.42] [01:28.01]How oft at school with most believing mind [01:30.72]Presageful have I gazed upon the bars [01:33.95]To watch that fluttering stranger and as oft [01:37.04]With unclosed lids already had I dreamt [01:39.71]Of my sweet birth place and the old church tower [01:43.19]Whose bells the poor man's only music rang [01:47.25]From morn to evening all the hot Fair day [01:50.66] [01:51.47]So sweetly that they stirred and haunted me [01:54.52]With a wild pleasure falling on mine ear [01:57.04]Most like articulate sounds of things to come [02:00.40] [02:01.54]So gazed I till the soothing things [02:04.42]I dreamt [02:05.08]Lulled me to sleep and sleep prolonged my dreams [02:09.43]And so I brooded all the following morn [02:12.10]Awed by the stern preceptor's face mine eye [02:15.12]Fixed with mock study on my swimming book [02:18.13]Save if the door half opened and [02:20.10]I snatched [02:20.52]A hasty glance and still my heart leaped up [02:23.40]For still I hoped to see the stranger's face [02:26.51]Townsman or aunt or sister more beloved [02:29.23]My play mate when we both were clothed alike [02:32.11] [02:33.15]Dear Babe that sleepest cradled by my side [02:37.58]Whose gentle breathings heard in this deep calm [02:40.60]Fill up the interspersed vacancies [02:43.24]And momentary pauses of the thought [02:45.67] [02:46.30]My babe so beautiful it thrills my heart [02:50.01]With tender gladness thus to look at thee [02:52.52]And think that thou shall learn far other lore [02:55.92]And in far other scenes [02:58.06] [02:58.86]For I was reared [02:59.82]In the great city pent 'mid cloisters dim [03:02.73]And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars [03:06.16] [03:07.19]But thou my babe shalt wander like a breeze [03:10.01]By lakes and sandy shores beneath the crags [03:13.53]Of ancient mountain and beneath the clouds [03:16.16]Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores [03:18.99]And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear [03:23.52]The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible [03:26.29]Of that eternal language which thy God [03:29.10]Utters who from eternity doth teach [03:31.18]Himself in all and all things in himself [03:34.54] [03:35.38]Great universal Teacher he shall mould [03:38.72]Thy spirit and by giving make it ask [03:43.14] [03:44.95]Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee [03:49.26]Whether the summer clothe the general earth [03:51.52]With greenness or the redbreast sit and sing [03:54.29]Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch [03:56.66]Of mossy apple tree while the nigh thatch [03:59.37]Smokes in the sun thaw [04:01.08]Whether the eave drops fall [04:02.59]Heard only in the trances of the blast [04:06.07]Or if the secret ministry of frost [04:08.61]Shall hang them up in silent icicles [04:11.98]Quietly shining to the quiet Moon