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Sonnet: On Receiving a Letter Informing Me of the Birth of a Son

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772–1834

When they did greet me Father, sudden Awe

Weigh'd down my spirit! I retired and knelt

Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt

No heavenly visitation upwards draw

My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart.

Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought

The unquiet silence of confused Thought

And shapeless feelings: my o'erwhelmed Heart

Trembled: & vacant tears stream'd down my face.

And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend,

Lover of souls! and groan for future grace,

That, ere my Babe youth's perilous maze have trod,

Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend

And he be born again, a child of God!

Biography

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the premier poet-critic of modern English tradition, distinguished for the scope and influence of his thinking about literature as much as for his innovative verse. Active in the wake of the French Revolution as a dissenting pamphleteer and lay preacher, he inspired a brilliant generation of writers and attracted the patronage of progressive men of the rising middle class. As William Wordsworth’s . . .

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