Timeline
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Frost At Midnight, published 1798
Frost At Midnight takes the reader into the silent meditations of the poet overseen by the "secret ministry of frost".
But the poet is not at peace: instead he is vexed by the "extreme silentness", despite "all the numberless goings on of life" being "Inaudible as dreams".
Remembering himself as a child, awed by a "stern preceptor's face" he returns to hear the more "gentle breathings" of his own "Dear Babe" and to envision the child's happier future, nurtured and taught by God through nature, by nature through God.
The poet returns in renewed faith to the "secret ministry of frost", vexation gone, under the "quiet Moon".