Thoughts on Coleridge

Coleridge uses the threat of invasion as a vessel with which to criticize British society. He claims that a gradually increasing avarice, as well as want of global power, have corrupted the British morality. He describes this material and social corruption as if the people have "been drinking with a riotous-thirst/ Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth,/ A selfish, lewd, effeminated race," culminating in a turning away from traditional religious values that have kept previous political and individual wealth in control, towards "the owlet, ATHEISM." Coleridge laments how the British people are adopting a desensitized feeling about war, denying sympathetic feelings towards both the fallen enemy and the British soldiers themselves, using "...all our dainty terms for fratricide...Like mere abstractions." However, Coleridge provides beautiful imagery of British nature and landscape, a way of rememedying the British population's lackadaisical morality and patriotism. Calling into mind the way in which "native Britain! O my mother Isle!/ How should'st thou prove aught else but dear and holy," reminding his audience of native Britains that there is much to be lost by failing to care about the country, by taking the threat of invasion as a symbolic threat to wealth, not a literal threat to livelihood and country.