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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


WHAT IS REASON? by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHENE'ER THE MIST, THAT STANDS 'TWIXT GOD AND THEE
Last Line: WHICH THOU HADST SEEN, HAD THAT BEEN SHAKEN OFF.
Subject(s): REASON; INTELLECT; RATIONALISM; BRAIN; MIND; INTELLECTUALS;

Whene'er the mist, that stands 'twixt God and thee
Defecates to a pure transparency,
That intercepts no light and adds no stain --
There Reason is, and then begins her reign!

But alas!

[Concludes with a passage in Italian from Dante's Paradiso, Canto I, translated into Enlish by
Henry Francis Cary]:

With false information thou thyself
Makest dull; so that thou seest not the thing
Which thou hadst seen, had that been shaken off.



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