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Dejection: An Ode
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming-on of rain and squally blast.
And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!
Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,
And sent my soul abroad,
Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!
Coleridge, on seeing the old moon in the arms of the new, fears that it portends stormy weather. As he is
contemplating on the superstition associated with the phenomenon the storm begins to blow. Coleridge
feels that the sounds of the wind and storm which used to inspire him in the past, might give their usual
impetus to his soul on that night, and might stir up his sense of frustration and even intensify it.
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A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear—
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,
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I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!
Coleridge gives expression to the grief from which he is suffering. It is such a dark and dismal sorrow
that it finds no expression in words, tears or sighs. He feels that nature cannot cure him of his pessimism
and melancholy as he is no longer stirred to his depths by nature.
III
My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
Coleridge believes that the sources of poetic inspiration lie within the human mind or the human soul.
Thus when the mind is paralysed nature cannot inspire the poet.
IV
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth—
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
Coleridge challenges the popular notion of Wordsworthian Philosophy. He says that it is we ourselves
who invest nature with life, soul, beauty or gloomy. It is we who attribute feelings and emotions to
inanimate nature. Nature is lifeless—it has neither intellect nor soul. Further, he believes that the poetic
inspiration is an echo of the poet’s soul.
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O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
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A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud—
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
He defines poetic inspiration as a ‘light, a glory, a fair luminous mist’ which is not only beautiful in itself
but which enables the poets to create beauty. It is joy—exultation. From it flows all fine arts like music,
poetry and painting which captivate the ear or the eye.
VI
There was a time when, though my path was rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress,
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:
For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,
And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.
But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;
But oh! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.
For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can;
And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man—
This was my sole resource, my only plan:
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.
Referring to his past, Coleridge says that he used to feel inspired and hopeful then, in spite of difficulties
and hardships. Now, however, misfortunes overpower him. He however does not lament so much the loss
of mirth arid joy as the loss of his Poetic faculty. He feels that he is drifting more and more towards the
study of ‘Metaphysics’ and fears that by and by this new interest would ‘kill’ the poet in him, though, by
nature he is a poet rather than a Philosopher.
VII
Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,
Reality's dark dream!
I turn from you, and listen to the wind,
Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out
That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without,
Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree,
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,
Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
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Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,
Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold!
What tell'st thou now about?
'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout,
With groans, of trampled men, with smarting wounds—
At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!
But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!
And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings—all is over—
It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!
A tale of less affright,
And tempered with delight,
As Otway's self had framed the tender lay,—
'Tis of a little child
Upon a lonesome wild,
Nor far from home, but she hath lost her way:
And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,
And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.
He finds escape from torturing and tormenting thoughts of despair by turning to the wind that is raving
outside. The wind, so it appears to him, is imitating tragic human sounds. At times it seems to imitate the
Sound of a defeated army, retreating in a disorderly manner. Like an actor the wind imitates perfectly the
Sounds of trampled wounded and shivering soldiers of the defeated army. After a pause, the wind seems
to be imitating the cries of a small child who has lost her way in a lonely forest, situated near her home.
VIII
'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:
Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!
Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,
And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,
Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!
With light heart may she rise,
Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,
Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;
To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul!
O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.
Though it is midnight, Coleridge has little inclination to go to bed. He, however, prays that his beloved
may never have to keep awake at night. Likewise he prays that she may enjoy eternal happiness and that
thoughts of sorrow or dejection may never invade her heart.
The poet describes the outburst of a storm after a calm evening and laments his own torpor and inability
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to be moved by the awful grandeur of the night. His own mood is wan and heartless. The fountains of life
fail within him; he lacks that emanation from soul necessary for the appreciation of Nature.
He looks back upon the imaginative days of his youth, when joy and hope had arisen naturally in his
heart. But pain and grief have taken all these away; abstruse research has superseded the imaginative
faculty. The wind’s expression of human cries only re-echoes his afflictions. His one comfort is to pray
that those whom he loves may not share such unrest.
Summary
"Dejection: An Ode" is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a famed English Romantic poet, that was
first published on October 4, 1802, in a London Daily Newspaper. Coleridge wrote the autobiographical
poem as an ode to his love, Sara Hutchinson, who was not his wife at the time, Sara Fricker. Desperately
in love with a woman that he was not married to, Coleridge experienced great despair leading him to pen
"Dejection: An Ode." Coleridge first married Sara Fricker but that marriage was not a happy one. During
this first marriage, Coleridge was addicted to opiates and before writing this poem, was in love with Sara
Hutchinson.
This poem by Coleridge was written as a letter, in verse, to his beloved Sara Hutchinson. In "Dejection:
An Ode," the speaker describes his love for Hutchinson and the fears he has that he is no longer able to
respond as intimately to the beauty in nature around him. The speaker describes his marriage as a failure
and that his addiction to opium negatively impacts his life, too. Finally, the speaker of "Dejection: An
Ode" hopes that all the joy he has lost will one day bless his love, the Dear Lady, that is referred to in the
poem's lines.
Analysis
The poem, "Dejection: An Ode," is considered to be an ode because Coleridge composed it as a lyric
poem that addresses a particular subject, the Lady referred to repeatedly in the poem. "Dejection: An
Ode" is also written in an elevated style in varied or irregular meter. An ode is a poem that is meant to be
sung.
One of the major themes of the poem is man's relationship with nature. According to English Romantic
poets, nature is a beautiful and powerful force of life. However, the speaker states that nature is not itself
powerful, but instead nature receives its power from the way that people receive the beauty of nature.
During the poem, the speaker watches a storm rolling in and he describes his varying reactions to the
storm. He can see the change in the weather, but he cannot feel it. Even something as powerful as a storm
does not affect him.
Another theme found in Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode" is the theme of heartbreak. In this poem, the
speaker's love is as of yet, and this unrequited love is preventing the speaker from seeing the world as he
once did. The speaker addresses the Lady throughout the poem and his love for this Lady is what gives
his life meaning and also causes him to feel numb and burdened. Even though the speaker feels the
dejection and sadness as referenced in the title, he still wishes only joy for the Lady he speaks to,
regardless of how much sadness he must endure.
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Themes
The Transformative Power of the Imagination
Coleridge believed that a strong, active imagination could become a vehicle for transcending unpleasant
circumstances. Many of his poems are powered exclusively by imaginative flights, wherein the speaker
temporarily abandons his immediate surroundings, exchanging them for an entirely new and completely
fabricated experience. Using the imagination in this way is both empowering and surprising because it
encourages a total and complete disrespect for the confines of time and place. These mental and
emotional jumps are often well rewarded. Perhaps Coleridge’s most famous use of imagination occurs in
“This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” (1797), in which the speaker employs a keen poetic mind that allows
him to take part in a journey that he cannot physically make. When he “returns” to the bower, after having
imagined himself on a fantastic stroll through the countryside, the speaker discovers, as a reward, plenty
of things to enjoy from inside the bower itself, including the leaves, the trees, and the shadows. The
power of imagination transforms the prison into a perfectly pleasant spot.
The Interplay of Philosophy, Piety, and Poetry
Coleridge used his poetry to explore conflicting issues in philosophy and religious piety. Some critics
argue that Coleridge’s interest in philosophy was simply his attempt to understand the imaginative and
intellectual impulses that fueled his poetry. To support the claim that his imaginative and intellectual
forces were, in fact, organic and derived from the natural world, Coleridge linked them to God,
spirituality, and worship. In his work, however, poetry, philosophy, and piety clashed, creating friction
and disorder for Coleridge, both on and off the page. In “The Eolian Harp” (1795), Coleridge struggles to
reconcile the three forces. Here, the speaker’s philosophical tendencies, particularly the belief that an
“intellectual breeze” (47) brushes by and inhabits all living things with consciousness, collide with those
of his orthodox wife, who disapproves of his unconventional ideas and urges him to Christ. While his
wife lies untroubled, the speaker agonizes over his spiritual conflict, caught between Christianity and a
unique, individual spirituality that equates nature with God. The poem ends by discounting the pantheist
spirit, and the speaker concludes by privileging God and Christ over nature and praising them for having
healed him from the spiritual wounds inflicted by these unorthodox views.
Nature and the Development of the Individual
Coleridge, Wordsworth, and other romantic poets praised the unencumbered, imaginative soul of youth,
finding images in nature with which to describe it. According to their formulation, experiencing nature
was an integral part of the development of a complete soul and sense of personhood. The death of his
father forced Coleridge to attend school in London, far away from the rural idylls of his youth, and he
lamented the missed opportunities of his sheltered, city-bound adolescence in many poems, including
“Frost at Midnight” (1798). Here, the speaker sits quietly by a fire, musing on his life, while his infant son
sleeps nearby. He recalls his boarding school days, during which he would both daydream and lull
himself to sleep by remembering his home far away from the city, and he tells his son that he shall never
be removed from nature, the way the speaker once was. Unlike the speaker, the son shall experience the
seasons and shall learn about God by discovering the beauty and bounty of the natural world. The son
shall be given the opportunity to develop a relationship with God and with nature, an opportunity denied
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to both the speaker and Coleridge himself. For Coleridge, nature had the capacity to teach joy, love,
freedom, and piety, crucial characteristics for a worthy, developed individual.
Motifs
Conversation Poems
Coleridge wanted to mimic the patterns and cadences of everyday speech in his poetry. Many of his
poems openly address a single figure—the speaker’s wife, son, friend, and so on—who listens silently to
the simple, straightforward language of the speaker. Unlike the descriptive, long, digressive poems of
Coleridge’s classicist predecessors, Coleridge’s so-called conversation poems are short, self-contained,
and often without a discernable poetic form. Colloquial, spontaneous, and friendly, Coleridge’s
conversation poetry is also highly personal, frequently incorporating events and details of his domestic
life in an effort to widen the scope of possible poetic content. Although he sometimes wrote in blank
verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, he adapted this metrical form to suit a more colloquial rhythm. Both
Wordsworth and Coleridge believed that everyday language and speech rhythms would help broaden
poetry’s audience to include the middle and lower classes, who might have felt excluded or put off by the
form and content of neoclassicists, such as Alexander Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and John
Dryden.
Delight in the Natural World
Like the other romantics, Coleridge worshiped nature and recognized poetry’s capacity to describe the
beauty of the natural world. Nearly all of Coleridge’s poems express a respect for and delight in natural
beauty. Close observation, great attention to detail, and precise descriptions of color aptly demonstrate
Coleridge’s respect and delight. Some poems, such as “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” “Youth and
Age” (1834), and “Frost at Midnight,” mourn the speakers’ physical isolation from the outside world.
Others, including “The Eolian Harp,” use images of nature to explore philosophical and analytical ideas.
Still other poems, including “The Nightingale” (ca. 1798), simply praise nature’s beauty. Even poems that
don’t directly deal with nature, including “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” derive
some symbols and images from nature. Nevertheless, Coleridge guarded against the pathetic fallacy, or
the attribution of human feeling to the natural world. To Coleridge, nature contained an innate, constant
joyousness wholly separate from the ups and downs of human experience.
Prayer
Although Coleridge’s prose reveals more of his religious philosophizing than his poetry, God,
Christianity, and the act of prayer appear in some form in nearly all of his poems. The son of an Anglican
vicar, Coleridge vacillated from supporting to criticizing Christian tenets and the Church of England.
Despite his criticisms, Coleridge remained defiantly supportive of prayer, praising it in his notebooks and
repeatedly referencing it in his poems. He once told the novelist Thomas de Quincey that prayer
demanded such close attention that it was the one of the hardest actions of which human hearts were
capable. The conclusion to Part 1 of Christabel portrays Christabel in prayer, “a lovely sight to see”
(279). In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the mariner is stripped of his ability to speak as part of his
extreme punishment and, consequently, left incapable of praying. “The Pains of Sleep” (1803) contrasts
the speaker at restful prayer, in which he prays silently, with the speaker at passionate prayer, in which he
battles imaginary demons to pray aloud. In the sad poem, “Epitaph” (1833), Coleridge composes an
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epitaph for himself, which urges people to pray for him after he dies. Rather than recommend a manner or
method of prayer, Coleridge’s poems reflect a wide variety, which emphasizes his belief in the
importance of individuality.
