The Full Text of “The Eolian Harp”
1 composed at clevedon, somersetshire
2My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
3Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
4To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown
5With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
6(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
7And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
8Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
9Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be)
10Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
11Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
12The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
13Tells us of silence.
14 And that simplest Lute,
15Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
16How by the desultory breeze caressed,
17Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
18It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
19Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
20Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
21Over delicious surges sink and rise,
22Such a soft floating witchery of sound
23As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
24Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
25Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
26Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
27Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
28O! the one Life within us and abroad,
29Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
30A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
31Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere—
32Methinks, it should have been impossible
33Not to love all things in a world so filled;
34Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
35Is Music slumbering on her instrument.
36 And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
37Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
38Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
39The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
40And tranquil muse upon tranquility:
41Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
42And many idle flitting phantasies,
43Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
44As wild and various as the random gales
45That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!
46 And what if all of animated nature
47Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
48That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
49Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
50At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
51 But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
52Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts
53Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
54And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
55Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
56Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
57These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
58Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
59On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.
60For never guiltless may I speak of him,
61The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
62I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
63Who with his saving mercies healèd me,
64A sinful and most miserable man,
65Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
66Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!
The Full Text of “The Eolian Harp”
1 composed at clevedon, somersetshire
2My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
3Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
4To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown
5With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
6(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
7And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
8Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
9Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be)
10Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
11Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
12The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
13Tells us of silence.
14 And that simplest Lute,
15Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
16How by the desultory breeze caressed,
17Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
18It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
19Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
20Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
21Over delicious surges sink and rise,
22Such a soft floating witchery of sound
23As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
24Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
25Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
26Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
27Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
28O! the one Life within us and abroad,
29Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
30A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
31Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere—
32Methinks, it should have been impossible
33Not to love all things in a world so filled;
34Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
35Is Music slumbering on her instrument.
36 And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
37Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
38Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
39The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
40And tranquil muse upon tranquility:
41Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
42And many idle flitting phantasies,
43Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
44As wild and various as the random gales
45That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!
46 And what if all of animated nature
47Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
48That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
49Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
50At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
51 But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
52Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts
53Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
54And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
55Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
56Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
57These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
58Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
59On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.
60For never guiltless may I speak of him,
61The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
62I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
63Who with his saving mercies healèd me,
64A sinful and most miserable man,
65Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
66Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!
-
“The Eolian Harp” Introduction
-
"The Eolian Harp" is a blank verse poem written by the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge began writing the poem in 1795 and continued revising it through 1828. An eolian harp is a type of stringed instrument that produces music whenever wind blows across it and causes its strings to vibrate. Many Romantic poets used the image of the wind and the harp as a metaphor for poetic inspiration and imagination. Coleridge's poem likewise uses the eolian harp as a metaphor for poetic creation, but the speaker rejects the Romantic image when it clashes with more orthodox Christianity.
-
-
“The Eolian Harp” Summary
-
Written at Clevedon in the county of Somersetshire
The speaker begins by addressing a thoughtful companion Sara, whose cheek is resting on his arm. He notes how pleasant it is to sit outside their cottage where jasmine and myrtle flowers grow (adding that these flowers are appropriate symbols of innocence and love), to watch the clouds go from being brightly lit to a sadder, darker shade, and to watch the bright evening star (which, he adds, is an appropriate symbol of wisdom) shine in the sky across from the clouds. He notes how pleasant the scent is from the nearby bean-field and how quiet their surroundings are—the sound of the far-off sea is so hushed and gentle that it seems more like silence than noise.
The speaker then turns his attention to a stringed instrument, a lute, that is sitting on a windowsill in the cottage. When the wandering breeze touches the lute's strings, the lute makes a sweet sound, just like a mischievous girl who complains so sweetly when her lover touches her that her complaints make him want to keep going. When the wind blows on the strings more strongly, the long notes fall and rise in pitch, making a soft, airy melody of the kind that, the speaker imagines, elves would make on evening voyages in ships blown by gentle breezes from Fairy-Land. In Fairy-Land, the speaker imagines, music is always playing around the honey-filled flowers in wild, changing melodies, like birds of paradise flying freely without stopping or setting down. The speaker then exclaims that human beings and the natural world around them share a single source of life, that animates everything that moves and in fact is the soul of all living things. This force can be sensed indirectly, as if it were the color of sound or the sound of light, and it creates pattern and order in our thoughts as well as a sense of joy everywhere. The speaker believes you cannot help loving everything in existence in a world that is filled with such a vibrant source of life, where the moving air makes music and still air is simply resting, but retains the potential to move and make music.
Addressing Sara again, the speaker stretches out the way he sometimes stretches out on a slope halfway up the nearby hill at noon, while he half-closes his eyes and watches the sunbeams sparkle like diamonds on the ocean and calmly thinks about the experience of being calm. Many thoughts come into the speaker's mind without his trying to think of them and without his being able to hold on to them. Many thoughtless images also flow out of his imagination and dart through his lazy, relaxed mind, images that are as unpredictable and diverse as the unpredictable winds that blow on the strings of the lute.
The speaker then wonders to himself if all things in nature could be thought of as living harps, crafted in different shapes, that come alive when a single spiritual force animates them. This spiritual force acts both as the soul of each living thing and as the God of the whole natural world.
The speaker then notices that Sara is looking critically at him, indicating that she disapproves of his unholy speculations about God, and urging him to adopt a more orthodox view of God. He praises her as a faithful follower of the Christian God and says she has correctly criticized his unholy ideas, which are attractive but ultimately meaningless philosophical speculations. The speaker acknowledges that he can never speak entirely correctly about God, who cannot be fully understood, except when he praises God with heartfelt faith. God has mercifully healed the speaker, although he was a wretched, sinful person wandering in confusion, and gave him the gifts of peace, of this cottage, and of Sara, whom the speaker sincerely values.
-
-
“The Eolian Harp” Themes
-
The Unity of the Natural World
The poem’s title, “The Eolian Harp,” refers to a stringed instrument that gives out music when touched by a breeze. The speaker uses this instrument as a metaphor for all living things: just as the instrument comes alive when moved by the wind, the speaker proposes that all nature comes alive when animated by a spiritual force. And because it is the same spiritual force that gives life to all things, the speaker suggests that there may be an underlying unity to all of creation—a thought he believes, at least at first, should inspire great joy.
The speaker begins by thinking about a lute that makes music when the breeze blows. When the lute’s strings are touched by the passing breeze, they vibrate and produce sweet notes. After using various images to describe the lute’s music, the speaker suddenly exclaims, “O! the one Life within us and abroad,” suggesting that all human beings and all of the natural world they inhabit share a single source of life.
The speaker then uses the image of the lute as a metaphor for this idea of a single source of life. He compares all of nature to many “organic,” or living, harps that come alive when stirred by “one intellectual breeze,” just as many musical harps would come alive with sound if they were touched by the same physical breeze. The “intellectual breeze” is a single spiritual force that acts as the “Soul of each” thing in nature. The fact that all living things—human or otherwise—draw life from the same source and share the same soul indicates that there is a fundamental unity to all of nature.
The speaker reacts at first with joy at the idea that all living things are connected in this way. When the speaker suggests that there is “one Life” animating all of nature, he says this life creates “joyance everywhere.” The speaker also thinks it should be “impossible” not to “love all things in a world so filled” with this source of life. Seeing all things as sharing one life should fill every person with joy and love. In the final section, however, the speaker distances himself from this view (see our next discussion of the theme of “God and Nature”).
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
God and Nature
In “The Eolian Harp,” the speaker proposes that all living things are animated by the same spiritual force, like many lutes that produce music when touched by the same breeze. The speaker then suggests the unorthodox idea that this single spiritual force may be both the God and soul of all living things; in other words, God doesn't just supply souls to living things, God is the soul of all living things. God is identical to that spiritual breeze that breathes life into everything. This would mean that God is not separate from nature but rather part of it. But when the speaker's addressee, Sara, disapproves of this view, the speaker reverts to an orthodox Christian view of God as nature’s creator and humanity’s savior.
The speaker proposes that nature is animated by God just as the lute is animated by the breeze. The speaker wonders whether all things in nature could be thought of as “organic Harps”—i.e., as living instruments that come alive when touched by an “intellectual,” or spiritual, breeze, just as the lute comes alive with music when touched by a physical breeze. The speaker identifies this spiritual breeze as "the soul of each” living thing “and God of all.” God is thus directly identified with a single spiritual force that animates all living things. (This image develops the speaker’s earlier suggestion that “one Life” exists in humans and in nature.) Essentially, God exists within all things.
This view of God is pantheistic, in that it arguably imagines that God is inseparable from nature. There is nothing in the natural world that is not filled with divine life; at the same time, there is no part of God that exists outside the natural world. This view is also abstract: God is a broad, impersonal force in nature, not a specific person-like being who created nature and who has personal relationships with the humans he created.
The speaker then notices that Sara “reject[s]” this idea of God. It's “unhallowed,” or unholy, because it contradicts the typical Christian view of God. She steers the speaker back to the orthodox view by telling him to “walk humbly with [his] God,” an allusion to a biblical passage, Micah 6:8 (“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”). Orthodox Christianity sees God as a personal figure, not an abstract force. When the speaker calls Sara “Daughter in the family of Christ!” he reminds the reader that God is chiefly present, not in nature, but in the person of His Son, Christ, who came to earth to save humanity.
The speaker accepts Sara’s reproof, rejects his earlier metaphor, and affirms the view of God as a creator and savior separate from His creation. The speaker says Sara has spoken “well” and follows her lead by rejecting his speculations about God as “shapings of the unregenerate mind," or a mind not sanctified by God, and as a product of “vain Philosophy.” “Vain” suggests something useless, that doesn't help him understand the truth.
The speaker acknowledges that a mere human can never fully comprehend God, “the Incomprehensible.” If God existed entirely in nature, then humans should be able to understand God. But the Christian God stands apart from nature because he created nature, and his creatures are supposed to simply have faith in him, like the “Faith” the speaker offers here. The speaker also affirms that God healed him, a “sinful” man, with “saving mercies.” In this way, he supports the Christian view that all humans are sinners who have been saved by God’s mercy.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
Creativity and Poetic Inspiration
In “The Eolian Harp,” the speaker describes the process of poetic inspiration. First, he finds that images from the natural world can make fitting poetic symbols for abstract ideas. The speaker then takes one particular image, the breeze that blows on the lute and brings forth music, as a metaphor for how the poet receives inspiration. This suggests that the poet enjoys a rich source of inspiration in nature, but also that he doesn't totally control the thoughts that inspire him.
In the poem's first section, the speaker begins by describing an outdoor environment where jasmine and myrtle flowers are growing. He then turns these natural elements into “meet emblems,” or appropriate symbols, of abstract ideas, identifying jasmine as a symbol of innocence and myrtle as a symbol of love. He also interprets the evening star as a symbol of wisdom. This all suggests that poets find inspiration in natural images, which they can use as symbols to communicate more abstract ideas.
The speaker then uses the image of the breeze and the lute to create a metaphor for the actual process of writing poetry: the poet is like an instrument that lets out poetry when touched by nature’s wind of inspiration. In the second stanza, the speaker notices how a lute’s strings produce music when the passing breeze touches them. In the next stanza, he describes how his mind is sometimes filled with many images and thoughts that seem to come from nature: they're as “wild and various” as the natural winds that blow on the lute, and they come naturally, “uncalled,” into his mind. If the speaker’s thoughts are like the breeze, then the speaker himself is like the lute. The breeze stirs the lute’s strings just as these spontaneous thoughts stir the speaker's mind; and as the lute transforms the breeze’s motion into music, the speaker transforms these thoughts into poetry.
This image of poetic inspiration has both positive and negative aspects. It's easy for the poet to be inspired with ideas, but not easy for him to control these ideas or to be sure that they're trustworthy.
The speaker says that “many a thought” and “many” fantasies come into his mind while he lies tranquilly outside on a hill. Going out into nature brings a flood of inspiration. He takes this natural scene and describes it with the poetic image of sunbeams dancing “like diamonds” on the sea. This beautiful image suggests that further beautiful thoughts will come pouring into his mind just as the sunlight pours around his body. However, the speaker then describes his brain as “indolent and passive.” “Indolent” has a negative connotation, suggesting laziness. “Passive” indicates that the poet plays no active role in shaping the thoughts that inspire his poetry. He is simply an instrument that cannot control what it produces, as the lute cannot control the music it plays.
If the poet cannot control his thoughts, the reader might question whether they're actually worth listening to. The suggestion that the poet’s thoughts may be untrustworthy is reinforced in the final section. The speaker rejects one of his earlier poetic metaphors as a glittering “bubbles” rising on the “babbling” spring of “vain Philosophy.” The thoughts that rise out of the speaker’s brain may have no more meaning or significance than a bubble rising out of a spring. The terms “vain” and “babbling” reinforce the idea that his thoughts may be meaningless, incoherent speech.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
Love and Marriage
The poem opens by addressing “My pensive Sara!” Scholars agree that “Sara” represents Sara Fricker; Coleridge was engaged to Fricker when he began work on the poem and they married while he was still composing it. As such, it's no wonder that the poem is in part a meditation on the nature of love and marriage. The speaker first proposes a vision of romantic love that is both erotic and innocent. He then playfully introduces a more daring or sinful erotic love. Sara then takes on a new role as the speaker’s guide in the Christian faith, and the poem ultimately presents a strong marriage as one in which the partners are united above all in their spiritual lives.
The first stanza places Sara and the speaker in an intimate, romantic setting, but suggests that intimacy can be innocent as well as erotic. The couple are physically close, as her “soft cheek” is “reclined” upon his arm. They're watching the “star of eve.” The star of eve, or evening star, is the planet Venus, named for the Roman goddess Venus. Venus is the goddess of love, sexuality, and desire, and so the “star of eve” suggests the erotic attraction the pair might feel. However, the star shines “serenely,” suggesting that the couple can easily control their feelings. The speaker also pairs the jasmine and myrtle flowers as symbols of “Innocence and Love,” suggesting that innocence and intimacy can easily coexist.
The next section depicts erotic attraction that strays away from innocence, but which is still presented playfully. The speaker compares the lute to a “coy maid” who is caressed by her lover as the lute is “caressed” by the breeze. This image introduces a less innocent, more daring kind of love. The maid pretends to “upbraid,” or scold, her lover, but her scolding is so “sweet” that it just tempts him to keep going. The speaker says the persistent lover “repeat[s] the wrong,” suggesting this erotic encounter may be sinful. However, the fact that the maid and her lover are playing a game (she pretends to scold him, he pretends to back off), combined with the speaker’s own amused tone, suggest that this condemnation is more playful than serious.
The final stanza represents romantic partnership as a source of redemption rather than temptation. It suggests that a strong marriage is one in which the partners have a primarily spiritual bond of mind and heart. To get to this point, the speaker first proposes an idea of God as essentially identical with nature. Sara condemns this idea of God because it goes against orthodox Christianity, and the speaker respects her critique. By urging him to “walk humbly with … God,” a biblical allusion, Sara steers him back to Christian orthodoxy.
The speaker accepts her criticism gratefully, calling her “beloved Woman!” who speaks “well.” The speaker thus reaffirms his commitment to orthodox Christianity and claims that one of God’s greatest gifts is Sara herself, whom the speaker calls a “heart-honored Maid!” Since she corrects his mind and he honors her in his heart, their relationship is a spiritual union of mind and heart, not only of body. And since God gave Sara to the speaker, this spiritual union is divinely blessed.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Eolian Harp”
-
Lines 2-7
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown
With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,The "Sara" here refers to Sara Fricker, to whom Coleridge was engaged when he started writing this poem, and whom he married while he was still finishing it. The fact that the poem is framed as an address to a specific person makes it one of Coleridge's "conversation poems." Scholars have identified six of Coleridge's poems as conversation poems because they share certain key characteristics. Most notably, they're all written as an address to a specific person. Sara's presence in the poem as the addressee will influence the direction of the speaker's thoughts. Her presence as the poet's fiancee/wife also suggests that love and marriage will be one of the themes of the poem.
This poem, like Coleridge's other conversation poems, is written in blank verse, a metrical form that uses unrhymed iambic pentameter. One line of iambic pentameter contains five iambs, or five pairs of unstressed-stressed syllables. The first line establishes this meter (though already there is some variation, with the double stress of "soft cheek" creating a spondee in the fourth foot):
My pen- | sive Sa- | ra! thy | soft cheek | reclined
The first line also establishes the poem's use of enjambment. In the first two lines, for instance, the speaker notes that Sara's cheek is "reclined," but the completion of that thought, that it is reclined "Thus on mine arm," doesn't come until line 2. Nearly all the lines in the poem are enjambed, as the speaker expresses himself in long sentences that flow over many poetic lines (the first sentence, for example, goes all the way from line 2 to line 10!).
These long sentences, with their many clauses, suggest that the speaker isn't planning out his words ahead of time, but instead speaking casually, expressing words as they come to him, just as people do in ordinary conversation. This establishes an intimate, informal relationship between the speaker and the addressee (and also might subtly reflect the way that poetic inspiration merely comes to the speaker passively, rather than being something he actively controls).
Besides establishing the addressee and the meter, the first lines also make the poem's setting clear. The conversation poems all begin by describing a vivid physical environment in detail, as the speaker here describes the color and shape of the flowers and the changing light in the clouds. The speaker reinforces the sense that this setting is quiet and peaceful through his use of consonance. The /s/ and /m/ sounds are repeated in "My pensive Sara!", "thy soft cheek," "Thus on mine arm," "most soothing sweet it is," and "sit beside." The fact that the repeated consonant sounds are soft ones contributes to the overall sense of euphony in these lines and in the whole stanza.
After describing the physical setting, the speaker in the conversation poems usually then moves into more abstract thoughts inspired by this setting. We see a hint of this pattern right away in lines 2-6. The speaker establishes that he and Sara are sitting "beside our Cot" (cottage), surrounded by particular varieties of flowers (jasmine and myrtle), but then notes that these flowers could be seen as symbols of more abstract ideas (innocence and love). This small movement from the concrete to the abstract will be replicated on a larger scale by the poem overall.
Finally, these opening lines suggest what key themes might emerge in the poem. The fact that the speaker takes elements from nature as symbols of larger ideas introduces the theme of nature as poetic inspiration. Because the flowers symbolize spiritual values, like love, there's also a suggestion that the natural world may be connected to the spiritual or divine world.
-
Lines 8-13
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world
so
hushed!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence. -
Lines 14-19
And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! -
Lines 19-24
And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, -
Lines 25-27
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! -
Lines 28-31
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere— -
Lines 32-35
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument. -
Lines 36-40
And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquility: -
Lines 41-45
Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute! -
Lines 46-50
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all? -
Lines 51-55
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ! -
Lines 56-61
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! -
Lines 61-66
save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly
feels
;
Who with his saving mercies healèd me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!
-
-
“The Eolian Harp” Symbols
-
The Eolian Harp
An eolian harp, or an Aeolian harp, is a stringed instrument built from a wooden box with strings stretched across. The instrument is named for Aeolus, the Greek god of wind, because its most notable feature is that it plays music when wind blows across the strings. Eolian harps are often put in windowsills, as the speaker describes here, to allow the wind to blow across them. The eolian harp became a popular instrument during the period when Coleridge was writing this poem, and the image of the harp appears in several poems from the period.
The harp first appears as a real, physical instrument in the window of the speaker’s cottage. After he sees that instrument, the speaker takes the idea of the eolian harp—an instrument that is played by the wind—and makes it into a symbol for the poet himself.
In the third stanza, the speaker describes lying on a hill and exposing himself to the forces of nature just as the harp is exposed to the wind when placed in the window. While out in nature, thoughts and images move unpredictably across the speaker's mind, just as the winds move unpredictably across the strings of the harp. From these wild thoughts, the speaker makes poetry, just as the harp makes music from the “random gales” that blow across it.
The fourth stanza then takes this the harp from being a symbol just of the poet and makes it into a symbol for all of nature, and for the way that all things in nature are connected. The speaker imagines that all living things are “organic” harps that “tremble into thought” when swept by an “intellectual” breeze, just as the instrumental harp starts making music when swept by a physical breeze. And because all these living harps are brought to life by the same breeze, they are intimately connected. The harp is thus also a symbol for the shared life that the speaker perceives existing within all of nature.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
-
Wind
If the harp symbolizes the poet, the wind symbolizes the inspiration that the poet receives, especially the inspiration from nature. “Inspire” actually comes from the Latin term meaning “to breathe or blow into.” The literal blowing (or inspiring) of the wind is turned into the symbolic inspiring of the ideas the poet receives. He describes the thoughts and “phantasies” that move through his brain by comparing them to “random gales” or winds. The fact that the poet is most flooded with ideas when he is out in nature, lying on the hill, reinforces this connection between physical wind and figurative inspiration.
Just as the harp goes on to represent living things more broadly, the wind also expands to become a symbol of the animating force in nature—even of God himself. Things in nature come to life when swept by an “intellectual breeze”—not a physical breeze but a spiritual one. In the biblical Book of Genesis, man first comes to life when God breathes into his nostrils. This story draws a close connection between literal breath or wind and the more abstract idea of a spirit or soul. The speaker draws the same connection, saying that the intellectual breeze is “the Soul of each, and God of all.” Wind, then, becomes a symbol for the soul that animates each living thing.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
-
-
“The Eolian Harp” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Conceit
The eolian harp, the instrument produces music when the wind blows across its strings, becomes part of the poem's conceit. Initially, in lines 14-15, the speaker refers simply to the physical harp sitting in the window of the cottage. But the harp goes on to become an elaborate extended metaphor, first for the process of poetic inspiration, and then for the entirety of the living world.
In lines 41-45, the speaker compares the wild and unpredictable thoughts that come into his head to the wild and unpredictable winds that make music on the lute. Within this comparison, the speaker himself is like the lute: just as the lute takes in the motion of the wind and turns it into music, the speaker takes in the thoughts with which nature inspires him and turns them into poetry.
One thought that seems to inspire him, which he then turns into a part of this very poem, is the idea that all living things (not just poets) could be considered "organic" eolian harps. This idea leads to the most fanciful version of the harp conceit yet, as the speaker imagines that, just as the eolian harp is brought to life musically by a physical breeze, all of nature might be "animated" by an "intellectual breeze."
The fact that Coleridge conveys this idea of nature through a poetic conceit is significant. His image of all living things being brought to life, essentially, by a single breeze breaks down barriers between human beings and the natural world they inhabit, emphasizing that people and the rest of nature share a single source of life. This reflects the literary device actually being used in the poem: a poetic conceit works similarly to break down barriers by comparing things that might initially seem very different. A harp is a man-made instrument not found in nature. By saying that living beings are like "organic Harps," or “natural” harps, the speaker breaks down the barrier between the human world and the natural world. The conceit reinforces the sense of how closely those two worlds are connected.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Simile
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Personification
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Rhetorical Question
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Euphony
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Polyptoton
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Allusion
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Metaphor
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Enjambment
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Caesura
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Consonance
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
-
"The Eolian Harp" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Pensive
- Reclined
- Cot
- Jasmin and Myrtle
- Meet
- Emblem
- Star of eve
- Stilly
- Lute
- Casement
- Hark
- Desultory
- Coy
- Maid
- Upbraiding
- Sequacious
- Witchery
- Elfins
- Gale
- Joyance
- Main
- Phantasies
- Traverse
- Indolent
- Passive
- Subject
- Animated
- Organic
- Plastic
- Intellectual
- Reproof
- Dart
- Unhallowed
- Holily
- Dispraise
- Shapings
- Unregenerate
- Vain
- Aye-babbling
- Save
- Inly
- Wildered
- Dark
-
Thoughtful or absorbed in thought
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Eolian Harp”
-
Form
“The Eolian Harp” does not have a strictly regular form (like, for example, a sonnet). The poem is, however, broken up into five stanzas of widely varying lengths.
Each stanza marks a different direction in the speaker’s thoughts. The first stanza is focused on his immediate physical setting. The second stanza begins by talking about something in his physical setting, the lute, but then moves into more abstract speculation. The third stanza begins with a memory of another physical setting, the hill, and then moves into a description of the speaker's thought process. The fourth stanza is pure abstract thought on the speaker’s part. The fifth stanza begins when the speaker’s attention is suddenly called back to his immediate setting by Sara’s look.
The irregularity of the stanzas adds to the poem's sense of free-association; that is, it seems the speaker is not thinking too much about what he says before he says it, but rather is simply thinking out loud. One idea bounces off the next, much like the poetic inspiration may come to the speaker's mind "uncalled and undetained."
-
Meter
The meter of “The Eolian Harp” is generally iambic pentameter, meaning each line is made up of five iambs (poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern). Since the lines of iambic pentameter are unrhymed, the poem as a whole is written in blank verse.
This meter is not very consistent throughout, however, with a substitution even in line 1. This can be scanned as having a pyrrhic (unstressed-unstressed) in the third foot and a spondee (stressed-stressed) in the fourth:
My pen- | sive Sa- | ra! thy | soft cheek | reclined
There are many other deviations from the meter, which may make the poem seem rather jittery. This is in keeping with its conversational nature; the speaker is thinking on his feet, relaying thoughts and ideas as they come to him, and these thoughts often break the expected meter of the line in which they appear. This also thus reflects the poem's conception of poetic inspiration as something that comes to the speaker unbidden—the speaker can't control this inspiration any more than he can control the precise meter of the poem.
For example, the speaker frequently inserts a trochee (stressed-unstressed) in place of an iamb, as seen in line 19:
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now its strings
The poem often uses this technique to give particular emphasis to an important word or idea; it feels fitting that a strong word like "tempt" gets a hard stress here, as does "snatched" in line 11. Trochees, pyrrhics, and spondees pop up throughout, creating a sense of ragged excitement as new thoughts pop unto the speaker's mind. Note the irregularity of line 11:
Snatched from | yon bean- | field! and | the world | so hushed!
This line is filled with substitutions that slow it down, adding a sense of deliberate emphasis and consideration that reflects the content of the phrase "world so hushed."
Lines also sometimes have far too few syllables. Note line 13:
Tells us of silence.
There are just five syllables here—meaning half the line is effectively blank (recall that lines of pentameter have ten syllables). It's as though the end-stopped "silence" spills over into the remainder of the line—the second half of the line is a manifestation of the very silence being discussed. The opening line of the stanza also has only five lines, making it a sort of continuation of the previous line—reflecting how the speaker's thoughts continuously build upon one another.
-
Rhyme Scheme
“The Eolian Harp” is written in blank verse, and as such has no regular rhyme scheme. The lack of regular rhyme enforces the reader’s sense that the speaker is speaking in an informal, conversational way, not planning what he will say ahead of time but rather just speaking his thoughts as they come to him. Some sounds do reappear at the ends of lines and create rare moments of rhyme—such as "main," "undetained," and "brain," in the third stanza—but these aren't regular enough to really be characterized as a rhyme scheme, and instead reflect the general musicality of the poem.
There are, however, some very subtle internal rhymes created through assonance. For example, in lines 8 and 9 the close repetition of long /e/ sounds in "eve," "serenely," and "be" creates a subtle moment of internal rhyme. This also then echoes with "Sea" in line 12. Moments like this add to the smooth, pleasant musicality of the poem. They also create a sense of connection between the meaning of the words. Take lines 18-19:
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong!There is an internal rhyme of "sweet" and "repeat" (which also repeat the long /e/ sound of "needs"). The rhyme reinforces the connection between the ideas, emphasizing that it is precisely because the maid's complaints are sweet that the lover is tempted to repeat or continue his advances.
Thus while the poem lacks clear full rhymes, it's still quite musical and lovely sounding.
-
-
“The Eolian Harp” Speaker
-
Though the speaker is not named nor gendered, people usually interpret it to be the poet himself, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The speaker begins by addressing a woman named Sara, his “beloved,” while they sit outside a cottage. Coleridge was engaged to a woman named Sara Fricker when he began writing the poem, and they visited a cottage in Clevedon, Somerset, while they were engaged. Coleridge notes that the poem was “composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire,” and so the poem seems, at least at first, almost like a record of his own experience there with Fricker.
The poem is written in the first person, with the speaker frequently referring to himself with terms like “my,” “mine,” and “I.” The speaker also directly addresses Sara with terms like “thy” and “thou” (old-fashioned terms for “your” and “you”). Part of the speaker’s goal is clearly to engage in conversation with Sara, but as the poem goes on, he is also drawn to exploring his own thoughts.
He begins by calling Sara’s attention to beautiful features of the environment. He then turns his attention away from their shared environment to develop his own philosophical speculations about nature and God. In the last stanza, however, Sara snaps him out of his wandering thoughts with her critical glance. Readers might expect the speaker to be upset or offended at Sara’s criticism. They might also expect that he wouldn't so readily abandon his own ideas about nature (which seemed to bring him a sense of joy). But he shows only gratitude towards Sara for correcting him. This section suggests that the speaker has strong respect for Sara and for Christianity.
-
-
“The Eolian Harp” Setting
-
seThe poem begins with a note that it was “composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire.” The poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, visited a cottage in Clevedon, Somerset (in South West England) in 1795, and this visit inspired him to begin writing “The Eolian Harp.” The poem itself begins by situating the speaker and his conversation partner outside a cottage in the country—likely one similar to the cottage Coleridge visited. The setting is quiet, peaceful, and full of the beauties of nature, from the flowers growing on the cottage, to the darkening clouds in the sky, to the pleasant scents coming from the nearby fields. The cottage is also not far from from the sea—they can hear the murmur of the waves, dimly, from the cottage, and the speaker later describes a nearby hill from which he can see the sea.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “The Eolian Harp”
-
Literary Context
Samuel Taylor Coleridge composed and revised “The Eolian Harp” over many years. The first draft of the poem is a manuscript of 17 lines dated, “Clevedon, August 20th, 1795.” It was inspired by a visit Coleridge made with his fiancee and later wife, Sara Fricker, to the cottage in Clevedon, Somerset, where they would live after their marriage. The poem first appeared in print in 1796. It was reprinted with notable changes in 1803, in 1817, and in 1828.
Scholars group “The Eolian Harp” together with five other poems that Coleridge composed between 1795 and 1798: “Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement,” “This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison, “Frost at Midnight,” “Fears in Solitude,” and “The Nightingale.” The conversation poems generally are addressed to a specific person and are written in blank verse. Structurally, they have three parts: the poems begin with a detailed description of a specific physical setting, then shift to an exploration of the speaker’s thoughts as inspired by the setting, and finally close by returning to the original setting, which the poet now understands at a deeper level.
The Eolian or Aeolian harp itself was a popular image in early nineteenth-century poems. Both the harp and wind figure in major poems by some of the most prominent poets of the Romantic period, including William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. The Romantics believed that poets were like Aeolian harps, in that they were sensitive to the forces of nature and translated those external natural forces into internal thought and feeling. The wind is often a metaphor for a significant change taking place in the mind of the poet. In Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” for example, he requests of the wind, “Make me thy lyre.” In Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem "The Prelude," the wind is compared to the inspiring spirit of God, and its presence signals the poet’s recovery of inspiration and hope.
The word “inspire” actually comes from the Latin term meaning “to breathe or blow into.” In the Old Testament, God gives life to man by breathing into his nostrils; the Latin terms spiritus and anima, and similar words in Greek, Hebrew, and Sanskrit, mean wind, breath, and soul. The image of the wind as giving life or inspiration draws on some much older ideas from the Christian religion as well as from pagan mythology. But the Romantic period was the first time this image was used by so many poets in so many poems. The image also worked especially well given Romantic poets’ desire to connect human beings more closely to nature.
Historical Context
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the major poets and thinkers of English Romanticism (a movement dating from roughly 1785 to 1830). The term “Romantic” doesn’t refer here to romantic love. It comes partly from the term “romance,” which refers to chivalric stories like the tales of King Arthur, with distant or magical settings and idealized characters. It also comes from the term “romantic,” which was used in 18th-century England to describe beautiful, emotionally moving scenes in nature. At this time, the Industrial Revolution was beginning in England. There were more factories filling the landscape and more smoke filling the air, and many more people moved from the countryside to cities. Romantic poets reacted against the Industrial Revolution by emphasizing the physical and spiritual beauties of nature.
Romanticism also held that a poet’s inspiration was meant to come from nature. In earlier periods, writers were supposed to learn their craft by following certain models and imitating the great writers of the past. Romanticism, by contrast, placed new importance on the individual and celebrated writers for their originality. Poets were, in fact, often seen as channels of nature, or even as prophets who found God’s voice in nature. When he represents the poet as an eolian harp, turning nature’s inspiration into poetry, Coleridge expresses this new Romantic view of what poetry should be.
Romantics were also very interested in the relationship between the individual mind and imagination and the natural environment, between the internal world and the external world. Many Romantic poems focus on an individual’s subjective response to nature. Poetry was not meant simply to reflect or describe the environment. It was meant to show how the speaker sees this environment and how he is changed by what he sees—what internal, personal, or spiritual significance he finds in the external world. This is why many Romantic poems begin by looking at nature but then focus on the speaker’s inner reflections as inspired by the natural landscape. “The Eolian Harp” follows just this pattern, beginning with the physical setting but then moving into the speaker’s thoughts.
The creative imagination took on new importance for many poets and thinkers after the French Revolution. Many Romantics had been inspired by the Revolution, seeing it as a promise not only of greater equality and freedom but of a new era in human history. Coleridge, among others, saw the Revolution as the fulfillment of religious prophecy. Their hopes were dashed when the Revolution turned into the bloody Reign of Terror and Napoleon seized power to establish a dictatorship. Some writers in England then started hoping that social transformation could come, not from political action, but from the individual creative imagination. Someone who could see things in an original, spiritual way—someone like a poet—could free himself and others from imprisoning social conventions and reveal new possibilities for human life. Coleridge and others saw the poet as a moral and spiritual prophet, and the imagination as a source of morality and truth. The end of “The Eolian Harp” reigns the poet’s imagination in with traditional religion, but the earlier sections emphasizing how the poet channels inspiration from nature and God are more in keeping with Romanticism as a whole.
-
-
More “The Eolian Harp” Resources
-
External Resources
-
Coleridge and the Romantics — An interesting overview of the Romantic poets, including Coleridge, from the BBC.
-
"The Eolian Harp" Read Aloud — A recording of “The Eolian Harp” being read aloud.
-
A Real, Live Aeolian Harp — A video recording of an actual Aeolian Harp being “played” by the wind on the Irish coast.
-
More on Romanticism — Another good overview of the Romantic period from the Norton Anthology.
-
Coleridge's Biography and Poetry — A detailed biography of the poet, with links to the texts of his major poems.
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Samuel Coleridge
-