The poem 'Frost at Midnight ' was written in the honour of the poet's son Hartley Coleridge and it gives us the picture of an evening spent by the poet by his fireside on a frosty night. In a deeply contemplative and reflective mood, the poet observes the frost falling noiselessly 'Unhelped by any wind'. There is an all pervading silence in the atmosphere which is occasionally broken by the shrill cry of the owlet, only heightening the grim silence of the nature by contrast.
The poet alone is left to his solitary musings as all the members of his family have gone to bed. The poet's only awareness is that of his son sleeping peacefully in the cradle beside him. The oppressive silence seemed to be a hindrance is his meditation as the mind is accustomed to working in the din and bustle of the normal surroundings.
The poet sits still and thinks about the nature and everything around him - the sea, hill, forests, and the populous village with the pulsations of life and the daily grind, of which he is a part of - seem to become a shadowy vision and appear before him like the silent pictures of a dream.
The fire on the hearth too burns steadily-only the film on the fire flutters and seems to the poet a welcome companion. It is indeed the tendency of the idle mind to search for the echoes and resemblances of its own moods in the range of natural objects of the surroundings and it does make a 'toy of thoughts', seamlessly flowing into a world of fancies. The bliss of solitude enables the poet's mind to drift into the lofty realm of imagination.
The tiny flickering film over the flame connects the present to the past and the poet is reminded of the monotonous life he lived in his school days as he sat dreamily watching the fire in the hearth. Often did he weave dreams about his birthplace and its old church tower. The peal of the bells of the church was the only music that the poor parishioners could afford to enjoy. The poet fondly remembers how the soulful music of the bells on the hot-fair days filled him with excitement and ecstasy and awakened a strange excess of joy in him that seemed to communicate to him the diverse future happenings.