Charlotte Smith

Selected Poems

Charlotte Smith, Judith Willson, Judith Willson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000143676
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book presents an ideal introduction to the full range of the works of Charlotte Smith, whose Romantic sensibility is an expression of a specifically female experience, from her influential sonnets and poems for children to extracts from her French Revolution poem.

From Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems

I

The partial Muse has from my earliest hours
Smiled on the rugged path I'm doomed to tread,
And still with sportive hand has snatched wild flowers,
To weave fantastic garlands for my head:
But far, far happier is the lot of those 5
Who never learned her dear delusive art;
Which, while it decks the head with many a rose,
Reserves the thorn, to fester in the heart.
For still she bids soft Pity's melting eye
Stream o'er the hills she knows not to remove, 10
Points every pang, and deepens every sigh
Of mourning friendship, or unhappy love.
Ah! then, how dear the Muse's favours cost,
If those paint sorrow best - who feel it most!

II
Written at the Close of Spring

The garlands fade that spring so lately wove,
Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew,
Anemones, that spangled every grove,
The primrose wan, the harebell mildly blue.
No more shall violets linger in the dell, 5
Or purple orchis variegate the plain,
Till spring again shall call forth every bell,
And dress with humid hands her wreaths again.
Ah! poor humanity! So frail, so fair,
Are the fond visions of thy early day, 10
Till tyrant passion, and corrosive care,
Bid all thy fairy colours fade away!
Another May new buds and flowers shall bring;
Ah! why has happiness - no second spring?

IV
To the Moon

Queen of the silver bow! - by thy pale beam,
Alone and pensive, I delight to stray,
And watch thy shadow trembling in the stream,
Or mark the floating clouds that cross thy way.
And while I gaze, thy mild and placid light 5
Sheds a soft calm upon my troubled breast;
And oft 1 think - fair planet of the night,
That in thy orb, the wretched may have rest:
The sufferers of the earth perhaps may go,
Released by death - to thy benignant sphere, 10
And the sad children of despair and woe
Forget in thee, their cup of sorrow here.
Oh! that I soon may reach thy world serene,
Poor wearied pilgrim - in this toiling scene!

V
To the South Downs

Ah! hills beloved! - where once, a happy child,
Your beechen shades, 'your turf, your flowers among',
I wove your bluebells into garlands wild,
And woke your echoes with my artless song.
Ah! hills beloved! - your turf, your flowers remain; 5
But can they peace to this sad breast restore,
For one poor moment sooth the sense of pain,
And teach a breaking heart to throb no more?
And you, Aruna! - in the vale below,
As to the sea your limpid waves you bear, 10
Can you one kind Lethean cup bestow,
To drink a long oblivion to my care?
Ah! no! - when all, e'en hope's last ray is gone,
There's no oblivion - but in death alone!

VII
On the Departure of the Nightingale

Sweet poet of the woods - a long adieu!
Farewell, soft minstrel of the early year!
Ah! 'twill be long ere thou shalt sing anew,
And pour thy music on 'the night's dull ear'.
Whether on spring thy wandering flights await, 5
Or whether silent in our groves you dwell,
The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate,
And still protect the song she loves so well.
With cautious step, the lovelorn youth shall glide
Thro' the lone brake that shades thy mossy nest; 10
And shepherd girls from eyes profane shall hide
The gentle bird, who sings of pity best:
For still thy voice shall soft affections move,
And still be dear to sorrow, and to love!

XII
Written on the Sea Shore – October, 1784

On some rude fragment of the rocky shore,
Where on the fractured cliff the billows break,
Musing, my solitary seat I take,
And listen to the deep and solemn roar.
O'er the dark waves the winds tempestuous howl; 5
The screaming seabird quits the troubled sea:
But the wild gloomy scene has charms for me,
And suits the mournful temper of my soul.
Already shipwrecked by the storms of fate,
Like the poor mariner methinks I stand, 10
Cast on a rock; who sees the distant land
From whence no succour comes - or comes too late.
Faint and more faint are heard his feeble cries,
'Till in the rising tide the exhausted sufferer dies.

XXII
To Solitude
(Supposed to be written by Werther)

Oh, Solitude! to thy sequestered vale
I come to hide my sorrow and my tears,
And to thy echoes tell the mournful tale
Which scarce I trust to pitying Friendship's ears!
Amidst thy wild woods, and untrodden glades, 5
No sounds but those of melancholy move;
And the low winds that die among thy shades,
Seem like soft Pity's sighs for hopeless love!
And sure some story of despair and pain,
In yon deep copse, thy murm'ring doves relate; 10
And, hark! methinks in that long plaintive strain,
Thine own sweet songstress weeps my wayward fate!
Ah, nymph! That fate assist me to endure,
And bear awhile - what death alone can cure!

XXVI
To the River Arun

On thy wild banks, by frequent torrents worn,
No glittering fanes, or marble domes appear,
Yet shall the mournful Muse thy course adorn,
And still to her thy rustic waves be dear.
For with the infant Otway, lingering here, 5
Of early woes she bade her votary dream,
While thy low murmurs soothed his pensive ear,
And still the poet consecrates the stream.
Beneath the oak and birch that fringe thy side,
The first-born violets of the year shall spring; 10
And in thy hazels, bending o'er the tide,
The earliest nightingale delight to sing:
While kindred spirits, pitying, shall relate
Thy Otway's sorrows, and lament his fate!

XXVII

Sighing I see yon little troop at play,
By sorrow yet untouched; unhurt by care;
While free and sportive they enjoy today,
'Content and careless of tomorrow's fare!'
O happy age! when hope's unclouded ray 5
Lights their green path, and prompts their simple mirth,
Ere yet they feel the thorns that lurking lay
To wound the wretched pilgrims of the earth,
Making them rue the hour that gave them birth,
And threw them on a world so full of pain, 10
Where prosperous folly treads on patient worth,
And, to deaf pride, misfortune pleads in vain!
Ah! - for their future fate how many fears
Oppress my heart - and fill mine eyes with tears!

XXXI
Written in Farm Wood, South Downs, in May 1784

Spring's dewy hand on this fair summit weaves
The downy grass, with tufts of Alpine flowers,
And shades the beechen slopes with tender leaves,
And leads the shepherd to his upland bowers,
Strewn with wild thyme; while slow-descending showers 5
Feed the green ear, and nurse the future sheaves!
Ah! blest the hind - whom no sad thought bereaves
Of the gay season's pleasures! - all his hours
To wholesome labour given, or thoughtless mirth;
No pangs of sorrow past, or coming dread, 10
Bend his unconscious spirit down to earth,
Or chase calm slumbers from his careless head!
Ah! what to me can those dear days restore,
When scenes could charm that now I taste no more!

XXXVI

Should the lone wanderer, fainting on his way,
Rest for a moment of the sultry hours,
And though his path through thorns and roughness lay,
Pluck the wild rose, or woodbine's gadding flowers,
Weaving gay wreaths beneath some sheltering tree, 5
The sense of sorrow he awhile may lose;
So have I sought thy flowers, fair poesy!
So charmed my way with friendship and the Muse.
But darker now grows life's unhappy day,
Dark with new clouds of evil yet to come, 10
Her pencil sickening Fancy throws away,
And weary Hope reclines upon the tomb;
And points my wishes to that tranquil shore,
Where the pale spectre Care pursues no more.

XL

Far on the sands, the low, retiring tide,
In distant murmurs hardly seems to flow;
And o'er the world of waters, blue and wide,
The sighing summer wind forgets to blow.
As sinks the day-star in the rosy west, 5
The silent wave, with rich reflection glows:
Alas! can tranquil nature give me rest,
Or scenes of beauty sooth me to repose?
Can the soft lustre of the sleeping main,
Yon radiant heaven, or all creation's charms, 10
'Erase the written troubles of the brain',
Which memory tortures, and which guilt alarms?
Or bid a bosom transient quiet prove,
That bleeds with vain remorse and unextinguished love!

XLIV
Written in the Churchyard at Middleton in Sussex

Pressed by the moon, mute arbitress of tides,
While the loud equinox its power combines,
The sea no more its swelling surge confines,
But o'er the shrinking land sublimely rides.
The wild blast, rising from the western cave, 5
Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed;
Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead,
And breaks the sil...