Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (1798)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (1798)

Quote

A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower!

In this poem, Coleridge is sitting under a lime-tree, angry that he can't take a walk with his friends, when he realizes that there's a lot right there in the lime-tree bower to make him happy.

Thematic Analysis

We don't need to dig very deep into these lines to see the senses everywhere. Look at how much sight and sound there is. There's the "transparent foliage" that the speaker sees, the "shadow of the leaf and stem above/ Dappling its sunshine," and the sound of the "solitary humble-bee" singing in the bean-flower.

Coleridge is making us see and hear a lot in these lines. His descriptions are focusing on the senses, on the physical perception of the world. This is something that the Romantics do again and again: make us see and hear and feel nature through our eyes, ears, and noses.

Stylistic Analysis

There are so many textures and colors in this excerpt, our senses might just explode. We can really see the transparent foliage and the sunlight, and we can hear that bee buzzing. Coleridge is using concrete description of light and darkness, textures, colors, sounds, to put us right there with him in the lime-tree bower.