Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement
- "Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement" in Sibylline Leaves (1817).
- "Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement" (unsourced)
Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1796. Like his earlier poem The Eolian Harp, it discusses Coleridge's understanding of nature and his married life, which was suffering from problems that developed after the previous poem. Overall, the poem focuses on humanity's relationship with nature in its various aspects, ranging from experiencing an Edenic state to having to abandon a unity with nature in order to fulfill a moral obligation to humanity. The discussion of man's obligation to each other leads into a discussion on the difference between the life of a philosopher and the life of a poet. By the end of the poem, the narrator follows the philosophical path in a manner similar to what Coleridge sought to do. The response to the poem from critics was mostly positive, with many of them emphasizing the religious aspects of the work in their analysis. Warning: template has been deprecated. It was first published in the Monthly Magazine, October 1796