How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought. (17-23)
Coleridge thinks that the movement of the "stranger" (the film of soot in the fireplace) is an image or metaphor for the way his thoughts move. The "Spirit"—either the Holy Spirit or Coleridge's own spirit (or both)—interprets those thoughts in its own light, trying to find an echo of inspiration in them.
Quote #2
[…] 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)
Coleridge thinks that Nature is an "eternal language" because it's the product of God's imagination—the same way that words are created by the human imagination. As for the last two lines: God makes human beings ask to grow closer to him by giving them this gift of Nature, which testifies to the existence of the Deity. Coleridge's baby will learn how to ask for this, by living so close to Nature.
Quote #3
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)
Each of the examples Coleridge gives from Nature are meant to be hints of God's presence. In the same way that the human imagination is a reflection of God's imagination, the icicles reflect light back to the moon (for instance). All the other examples reveal a creative process in flux—the Hand of God in motion.