Religious Musings

Religious Musings was composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1794 and finished by 1796. It is one of his first poems of critical merit and contains many of his early feelings about religion and politics.

While staying in London over the 1794 Christmas season, Coleridge began writing Religious Musings. He continued to work on the poem for over a year and it was published in his 1796 collection of poems as Religious Musings: A Desultory Poem, Written on the Christmas Even of 1794.^[1] This was the first true publication of the poem, but an excerpt was printed in his short lived paper The Watchman,^[2] in the 9 March issue under the title "The Present State of Society". Also, Religious Musings was expanded with an addition just after its first publication.^[3]

After finishing the poem in March 1796, Coleridge wrote to his friend Thomas Poole in April to say "I pin all my poetical credit on the Religious Musings."^[4] In a letter to John Thelwall, a fellow poet with similar political views, he wrote in April, "I beg your acceptance of my Poems — you will find much to blame in them — much effeminancy of sentiment, much faulty glitter of expression. I build all my poetic pretentions on the Religious Musings".^[5]

Religious Musings is a 420-line blank verse poem. The poem begins with a connection to John Milton's On the Morning of Christ's Nativity by referring to the narrator as a prophet. Along with this prophetic emphasis is a description of Christ's birth:^[6]

This is the time, when most divine to hear, The voice of Adoration rouses me, As with a Cherub's trump: and high upborne, Yea, mingling with the Choir, I seem to view The vision of the heavenly multitude, Who hymned the song of Peace o'er Bethlehem's fields! Yet thou more bright than all the Angel-blaze, That harbingered thy birth, Thou Man of Woes!^[7]

Partway through the poem, the narrator introduces the idea of One Life:^[8]

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy name is Love. Truth of subliming import! with the which Who feeds and saturates his constant soul, He from his small particular orbit flies With blest outstarting! From himself he flies, Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze Views all creation; and he loves it all, And blesses it, and calls it very good! This is indeed to dwell with the Most High! Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim Can press no nearer to the Almighty's throne.^[7]

As the poem progresses, the narrator lists those who work to use science and reason to help mankind, including Benjamin Franklin, called "Patriot Sage":^[9]

From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War Sprang heavenly Science; and from Science Freedom. O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not Wealth's rivalry! and they, who long Enamoured with the charms of order, hate The unseemly disproportion: and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the Victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. [...]^[7]

The poem continues to introduce more of that elect group of individuals that are helping the world:^[9]

                    To Milton's trump The high groves of the renovated Earth Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hushed, Adoring Newton his serener eye Raises to heaven: and he of mortal kind Wisest, he first who marked the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain. Lo! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage, Him, full of years, from his loved native land Statesmen blood-stained and priests idolatrous By dark lies maddening the blind multitude Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying he retired, And mused expectant on these promised years.^[7]