The scene is a small cottage, in a crisp winter night, and the poet Coleridge is awake beside the low fire, and his sleeping infant son. He looks to that fire, and he sees a sort of film flickering on the iron grate, a film of soot glowing with heat. In England, that film was called the “stranger.”
What a beautiful poem! Dr. Esolen, I've been a subscriber to your Substack for several months now and I am thoroughly enjoying it but I have to say, I really love the art that you put in the poems and your reflections. You inspired me to make a "book" of autumnal poems accompanied with autumnal artwork for my sons (ages 11, 8, and 4) and I will be making a winter-themed collection very soon for them. Thank you sir!
The glass on the wood stove often revealed a form from the fire within. Each time a form appeared
prayers were offered for a purgatorial soul in distress.
These smokey spirits were the " strangers" petitioning release from their torment.
What a beautiful poem! Dr. Esolen, I've been a subscriber to your Substack for several months now and I am thoroughly enjoying it but I have to say, I really love the art that you put in the poems and your reflections. You inspired me to make a "book" of autumnal poems accompanied with autumnal artwork for my sons (ages 11, 8, and 4) and I will be making a winter-themed collection very soon for them. Thank you sir!