Dejection: An Ode is one of S.T. Coleridge’s most acclaimed poems. Many great things have been said about this poem, including the point that:

Coleridge is perhaps the only poet that can start a great poem with the word ‘well.’

The poem is notable in the fact that it begins with Coleridge stating he has lost the ability to write beautiful poetry, which is OG subtle literary joking (now being mimicked by the likes of Eminem among others) because despite Coleridge’s claims that it would be better if he “were mute” he goes on to craft one of his greatest poems.

Rosemary Ashton wrote of Coleridge:

Coleridge’s special genius scarcely surfaced, though it would do so once more in his great poem ‘Dejection: An Ode’"

Dejection: An Ode was written as a response to Wordsworth’s “Expostulation and Reply” and “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” and interacts with/reacts to the poetry of Wordsworth.

It is also interesting to note that this text, commonly referred to as the ‘Dejection ode’ (like Wordsworth’s ‘Immortality ode’) was first written in the form of a long verse letter entitled “A Letter To —-, April 4, 1802.” It is thought that this was a letter which Coleridge intended to send to Sara Hutchinson, because throughout the poem Coleridge addresses the reader as “Sara” or “O Sara!” (he later changed the word ‘Sara’ to the word ‘Lady’). Overall, the original verse letter is far more confessional in its tone than is the Dejection ode here, and some Coleridge biographers consider it the superior, though less anthologized, version of the two.

George Herbert’s “Prayer (1)” is, in simple terms, a list of things that define “prayer”. But it has complex layers.

The poem is constructed in what might be described as a “radial order”, in which each definition branches off like the spokes on a wheel. it also has a temporal order, or time-based order — the concept of prayer seems to change as the poem progresses. For example, “Reversèd thunder” doesn’t evoke the same feelings as “Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss.”

“Prayer (I)” is complex but rewarding to analyse. And at the end, prayer is described as “something understood,” yet it is also many things that are difficult to understand.

Along with John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 14,” George Herbert’s “Prayer (I)” is one of literature’s most famous religious poems.