After an accident, Coleridge is left confined under a lime-tree bower while his good friends take a stroll. Readers are taken on an imaginative journey as he follows his friends on their walk in his mind. Contrast is used to show the way in which the persona's imaginative journey opens his mind to the beauty of nature, turning "imprisonment" under a lime-tree bower into a pleasure. Sensory imagery is used to emphasise the beauty of nature, and highlights the contrast between the persona's attitude before and after his journey. Coleridge's imagination enables him to unite with his friend, Charles, through nature. This idea is conveyed through symbolism, and emphasises the effect of Coleridge's imaginative on his attitude towards nature.
Contrast is used to show the effect of the persona's imaginative journey on his attitude towards nature. His imagination defines the three stanza structure of the poem. In the first stanza, the reader is immediately confronted with the informality of a conversational tone. "Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison!" The word "prison" gives a connotation of darkness and cold, communicating the persona's negative attitude towards the lime-tree bower at this point in time. Through the conversational tone, the poet seems to be addressing the reading and thereby creates a link between himself and the reader, inviting the reader to share his feelings and follow him on his imaginative journey. He emphasises his frustration at his confined situation through use of exclamation marks. The persona also exaggerates his situation in dramatic melancholy when thinking about his "friends, whom [he] never more may meet again" and is resentful that he cannot share such "beauties and feelings, such as would have been." This mood of sorrow and confinement is supported by reference to old age and words such as "dimm"d" and "blindness".
Contrast is created immediately when the poet flings into his imaginative journey, and joins his friends on their walk through a dell.