Nature as Inspiration: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's To Nature
In the sonnet “To Nature” Samuel Taylor Coleridge turns to nature for his source of inspiration, while other mock him for his belief, Coleridge embraces it. In line one, Coleridge says “It may be fantasy” when describing drawing his inspiration from “all created things”. This shows that Coleridge agrees that it is unusual what he is doing, but he does not care-he does it anyway. In line 5 he personifies nature saying that it teaches him “Lessons of love and earnest piety.” This is where Coleridge introduces a spiritual aspect into the poem with the word “piety”. He has changed nature from just a physical teacher but a spiritual and emotional teacher. There is a shift after line 5 where Coleridge addresses others who “mock this belief”, in response Coleridge says that nature doesn’t bring on the feeling of “fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity”. He says that unlike other form of inspiration that poets use-his inspiration isn’t negative or developed with shallow thought. It is after this line in which the Volta of the poem occurs. He brings back the spiritual metaphors-while morphing them into a more structured religious metaphor-saying he will build an “alter in the fields/ And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be”. He is no longer partially agreeing in what he is doing-like in the beginning of the poem-but now he fully embraces nature as his teacher, as his inspiration. Coleridge in line 13 says, “Thee only God! And thou shalt not despise”. He pushes this religious aspect even further which might lead the reader to believe that the entire poem’s subject of nature is actually a metaphor for god-or a higher religious presence-which is where he actually takes his inspiration from.