533. from Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
b"ST Coleridge read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\n\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------\\n\\nfrom Frost at Midnight \\nby Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 \\u2013 1834)\\n \\n\\nThe Frost performs its secret ministry,\\nUnhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry\\nCame loud, -and hark, again! loud as before.\\nThe inmates of my cottage, all at rest,\\nHave left me to that solitude, which suits\\nAbstruser musings: save that at my side\\nMy cradled infant slumbers peacefully.\\n'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs\\nAnd vexes meditation with its strange\\nAnd extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,\\nWith all the numberless goings-on of life,\\nInaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame\\nLies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;\\nOnly that film, which fluttered on the grate,\\nStill flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.\\nMethinks its motion in this hush of nature\\nGives it dim sympathies with me who live,\\nMaking it a companionable form,\\nWhose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit\\nBy its own moods interprets, every where\\nEcho or mirror seeking of itself,\\nAnd makes a toy of Thought.\\n\\nFirst aired: 26 December 2007\\n\\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.\\n\\nTo learn a little more about the poems and poets on Classic Poetry Aloud, join the mailing list.\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2008"