During the Romantic period, the notion of nature played an enormous role within poetry, and I argue that Romantic poets represent nature in terms of the sublime. I will explore the sublimity of nature in the two poems ‘Ode to the West Wind (1819) by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Part Four and Five of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1797) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the surrounding anxieties of the era that caused nature to be one of the main focuses of the Romantic poets. I have chosen these two particular poems because I believe they both effectively portray nature in a sublime way. On first consideration of whether the Romantic poet is in fact predominantly a nature poet it is imperative to understand the social, historical and theoretical contexts of the era. Margaret Drabble states that the Romantic period stretches from ‘1770 to 1848’1 and during this short time frame there was a vast change in thinking. This change was so vast that Isaiah Berlin argues Romanticism is ‘the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West that has occurred’.2 The Romantic period saw a break away from earlier Enlightenment scientific reasoning and logical rationality. Romantics challenged towards a more inward, deeper, subconscious answer for their questions they were asking, as they believed ‘reason cannot explain everything’.3 However, what gains weight to the Romantics alteration in thinking is that it was not just poets who embraced this change, it was also supported by writers of other literary forms, philosophers, musicians and fine artists. But why was it that the Romantic poets were so fascinated with nature? I believe that it is due to three anxieties of the time. Firstly, and most importantly was the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution saw a move away from the rural, as the ‘provincial landscape often became urban and industrialised following advances in agricultur[al]’4 technologies, making jobs of the era redundant; thus causing families to move to cities to find work. Poets became sympathetic towards the loss of their nations natural landscape, and thus inspired them to comment on its beauty that was becoming taken for granted. Secondly, as a reaction of the industrial revolution, city dwellers saw the country as an escape. Nature was seen to have a moral benefit as the city was starting to be seen as a corrupt. Rural retreats were set up for holiday makers, and due to better rail systems more people could easily visit beauty spots, which were deemed as pure and innocent around Britain. Finally, a different way of viewing God had emerged. In reaction to the Enlightenment philosopher Spinoza’s belief of having an ‘intellectual love for God’5 Romantics considered a more natural love for god. In nature they saw spiritual qualities and God-like powers expressed in the term of pantheism which ‘regards the universe as a manifestation of God’6 As stated, I will explore how poets represent nature by using the sublime. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (2008) the sublime is described as ‘A quality of awesome grandeur in art of literary terms’ and is associated ‘with terrifying impressive natural phenomena such as mountains, volcanoes, storms, and the sea.’.7 These attributes of natural spectacles I will argue later can be found in both poems ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and Part Four and Five of ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. Edmund Burke expands on the notion of the sublime and expresses the inward emotions that are conjured when faced with the sublime. Burke argues ‘[the sublime] is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling’ implying how the poet who feels the ‘stronge