No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently,
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

This is the beginning of Coleridge's poem, and he's taking us readers on a walk with him.

Have you gotten tired of reading about nature yet? Well, the Romantics certainly never got tired of writing about it. Here's another poem about a nightingale (remember that Keats wrote an ode to a nightingale, too).

The subtitle of this poem, "A Conversation Poem," is extra important because it clues us into what Coleridge (and other Romantics) were trying to do with poetic form: trying to make poetic language more conversational and informal, which went against the literary conventions of the time.

Notice how the lines of this poem aren't rhymed, and if we read them aloud, they read almost like prose, like someone talking. And in fact, the speaker of the poem is talking directly to us: "Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!/ You see the glimmer of the stream beneath." In other words, he (or she) is including us in the "we," and he (or she) is addressing us directly as "you." The speaker is having a conversation with us readers, and it feels nice and intimate and cozy, not formal and stuffy.