How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. (1-2)
In freezing the earth and creating icicles, the Frost performs a kind of "ministry" because it (the frost) is the agent (or "minister") of a higher power: God. (This is how Coleridge views everything in Nature—all natural processes testify to the power of God.) Also, the frost's ministry is "secret" because it's hidden by the night.
Quote #2
Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! (10-13)
Dreams aren't audible because, well, they're in someone's head. Everything that's going on at night is just as secret, just as hidden (except for the crying owl, Coleridge's breathing baby, and the film of soot fluttering on the fireplace).
Quote #3
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! (49-52)
Coleridge hopes that living close to Nature will make his baby son, Hartley, happier and at peace with God and the world. It's the way Coleridge's famous friend, William Wordsworth, apparently felt about Nature, and it's the way Coleridge wishes he himself could feel… if he could only resolve his problems (his drug addiction, his marital issues, and so on).
Quote #4
For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags (52-59)
Coleridge continues making the same wish he made in the last quote, praying for his son's happiness. Also, these lines use the same imagery of reflection found elsewhere in the poem. The shapes of the clouds reflect shapes on earth, in the same way that the motions of thought in the mind reflect the Spirit and in the same way that the icicles reflect the moonlight back to the moon, at the end of the poem.
Quote #5
[…] so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. (59-65)
God uses Nature to tell people he exists, but this is a poetic message more than a scientific one. Nature as a symbol or a metaphor alerts people to the existence of God, not necessarily Nature as a system of equations and physical laws.
Quote #6
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. (66-75)
Coleridge's son will find signs of God's presence in all of the seasons, and will be able to be happy in all seasons for that reason. You can also draw a relationship between the way the icicles reflect the moonlight and the way Nature reflects God.