Poetry By English Women

by R. E. ; Pritchard

  ‘And though I’ve no money and though I’ve no lands,

  I’ve a head on my shoulders and a pair of good hands;

  So I’ll work the whole day and on Sundays I’ll seek

  At church how to bear all the wants of the week. [70]

  The gentlefolks too will afford us supplies;

  They’ll subscribe – and they’ll give up their puddings and pies.

  ‘Then before I’m induced to take part in a riot,

  I’ll ask this short question – What shall I get by it?

  So I’ll e’en want a little till cheaper the bread,

  For a mittimus hangs o’er each rioter’s head;

  And when of two evils I’m asked which is best,

  I’d rather be hungry than hanged, I protest.’

  Quoth Tom, ‘Thou art right; if I rise, I’m a Turk’,

  So he threw down his pitchfork and went to his work. [80]

  CHARLOTTE SMITH 1749–1806

  Her mother Anna (Towers) died when she was three; the impending remarriage of her father, Nicholas Turner, a landed gentleman of Sussex, when she was fifteen, provoked her into marrying Benjamin Smith, son of a West India merchant, who recklessly wasted their money and brought them to debtors’ prison. Her tenth child was born in 1785, but in 1784 she also produced her Elegiac Sonnets (eleven editions by 1851), marked by the raptures, anguish and bad weather of the Gothick sensibility. After leaving her husband, supported herself and her children by novel-writing (averaging a book a year for twenty years). The mode is generally Gothick, Mr Smith modelling for a series of bad husbands; the later novels were thought too politically liberal. Her Beachy Head volume displays a lively interest in nature, wry humour, and a romantic yearning for lost innocence.

  Elegiac Sonnets (London, 1784); Beachy Head, with Other Poems (London, 1807); Florence May Hilbish, Charlotte Smith, Poet and Novelist (Hughesville, Penn., 1941); Katharine M. Rogers, Feminism in Eighteenth Century England (Brighton: Harvester, 1982).

  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,

  Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed,

  Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead,

  And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!

  With shells and seaweed mingled, on the shore

  Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave; [10]

  But vain to them the winds and waters rave;

  They hear the warring elements no more:

  While I am doomed – by life’s long storm oppressed,

  To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.

  On the Aphorism: ‘L’Amitié est l’amour sans ailes’

  Friendship, as some sage poet sings,

  Is chastened Love, deprived of wings,

  Without all wish or power to wander;

  Less volatile, but not less tender:

  Yet says the proverb – ‘Sly and slow

  ‘Love creeps, even where he cannot go;’

  To clip his pinions then is vain,

  His old propensities remain;

  And she, whose years beyond fifteen,

  Has counted twenty, may have seen [10]

  How rarely unplumed Love will stay;

  He flies not – but he coolly walks away.

  from Beachy Head

  … I once was happy, when while yet a child,

  I learned to love these upland solitudes,

  And, when elastic as the mountain air,

  To my light spirit, care was yet unknown

  And evil unforeseen: – Early it came,

  And childhood scarcely passed, I was condemned,

  A guiltless exile, silently to sigh,

  While Memory, with faithful pencil, drew

  The contrast […]

  An early worshipper at Nature’s shrine, [10]

  I loved her rudest scenes – warrens, and heaths,

  And yellow commons, and birch-shaded hollows,

  And hedge rows, bordering unfrequented lanes

  Bowered with wild roses, and the clasping woodbine

  Where purple tassels of the tangling vetch

  With bittersweet, and bryony inweave,

  And the dew fills the silver bindweed’s cups –

  I loved to trace the brooks whose humid banks

  Nourish the harebell, and the freckled pagil;

  And stroll among o’ershadowing woods of beech, [20]

  Lending in summer, from the heats of noon

  A whispering shade; while haply there reclines

  Some pensive lover of uncultured flowers,

  Who, from the tumps with bright green mosses clad,

  Plucks the wood sorrel, with its light thin leaves,

  Heart-shaped, and triply folded; and its root

  Creeping like beaded coral; or who there

  Gathers, the copse’s pride, anemones,

  With rays like golden studs on ivory laid

  Most delicate; but touched with purple clouds, [30]

  Fit crown for April’s fair but changeful brow.

  Ah! hills so early loved! in fancy still

  I breathe your pure keen air; and still behold

  Those widely spreading views, mocking alike

  The poet and the painter’s utmost art.

  The visionary, nursing dreams like these,

  Is not indeed unhappy. Summer woods

  Wave over him, and whisper as they wave […]

  Thirty-eight: Addressed to Mrs H—y*

  In early youth’s unclouded scene,

  The brilliant morning of eighteen,

  With health and sprightly joy elate

  We gazed on life’s enchanting spring,

  Nor thought how quickly time would bring

  The mournful period – Thirty-eight.

  Then the starch maid or matron sage,

  Already of that sober age,

  We viewed with mingled scorn and hate,

  In whose sharp words or sharper face [10]

  With thoughtless mirth we loved to trace

  The sad effects of – Thirty-eight.

  Till saddening, sickening at the view,

  We learned to dread what time might do;

  And then preferred a prayer to fate

  To end our days ere that arrived,

  When (power and pleasure long survived)

  We met neglect and – Thirty-eight.

  But time, in spite of wishes, flies,

  And fate our simple prayer denies, [20]

  And bids us death’s own hour await:

  The auburn locks are mixed with grey,

  The transient roses fade away,

  But reason comes at – Thirty-eight.

  Her voice the anguish contradicts

  That dying vanity inflicts;

  Her hand new pleasures can create.

  For us she opens to the view

  Prospects less bright – but far more true,

  And bids us smile at – Thirty-eight. [30]

  No more shall scandal’s breath destroy

  The social converse we enjoy

  With bard or critic tete a tete;

  O’er youth’s bright blooms her blights shall pour,

  But spare the improving friendly hour

  That science gives to – Thirty-eight.

  Stripped of their gaudy hues by truth,

  We view the glitt’ring toys of youth,

  And blush to think how poor the bait

  For which to public scenes we ran [40]

  And scorned of sober sense the plan

  Which gives content at – Thirty-eight.

  Though time’s inexorable sway

  Has torn the myrtle bands away,

  For other wreaths ’tis not too lat
e;

  The amaranth’s purple glow survives

  And still Minerva’s olive lives

  On the calm brow of – Thirty-eight.

  With eye more steady we engage

  To contemplate approaching age, [50]

  And life more justly estimate.

  With firmer souls and stronger powers,

  With reason, faith and friendship ours,

  We’ll not regret the stealing hours

  That lead from Thirty – even to Forty-eight.

  DOROTHY WORDSWORTH 1771–1855

  ‘Her eyes were not soft, as Mrs. Wordsworth’s, nor were they fierce or bold; but they were wild and startling, and hurried in their motion. Her manner was warm and even ardent; her sensibility seemed constitutionally deep; and some subtle fire of impassioned intellect apparently burned within her, which, being alternately pushed forward into a conspicuous expression by the irrepressible instincts of her temperament, and then immediately checked, in obedience to the decorum of her sex and age, and her maidenly condition, gave to her whole demeanour, and to her conversation, an air of embarrassment, and even self-conflict, that was most distressing to witness’ (Thomas De Quincey). Born in Cockermouth, third child and only daughter of Ann and John Wordsworth, land agent, one year after William. After her mother’s death when she was six, was brought up by relatives, but set up home with William in 1795, moving to Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in 1797. Her sensitively-written journals recount their life together and her response to the natural world. Was very distressed at William’s marriage; contracted a near-fatal fever in 1829; from 1835 to her death, frequently insane. Little she wrote was published in her lifetime. ‘During the last years of her life her poetry was paramount. She copied and recopied her verses; she recited them continually … Most obviously, her poems exist intertex tually with those of her brother … The poetic presence of her brother made it difficult for Dorothy to write poetry’ (Levin).

  Susan M. Levin, Dorothy Wordsworth and Romanticism (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers State UP, 1987), includes the poems; Robert Gittings and Jo Manton, Dorothy Wordsworth (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985); Margaret Homans, Women Writers and Poetic Identity (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980).

  Grasmere – a Fragment

  Peaceful our valley, fair and green,

  And beautiful her cottages,

  Each in its nook, its sheltered hold,

  Or underneath its tuft of trees

  Many and beautiful they are;

  But there is one that I love best,

  A lowly shed, in truth, it is,

  A brother of the rest.

  Yet when I sit on rock or hill,

  Down looking on the valley fair, [10]

  That cottage with its clustering trees

  Summons my heart; it settles there.

  Others there are whose small domain

  Of fertile fields and hedgerows green

  Might more seduce a wanderer’s mind

  To wish that there his home had been.

  Such wish be his! I blame him not,

  My fancies they perchance are wild

  – I love that house because it is

  The very mountains’ child. [20]

  Fields hath it of its own, green fields,

  But they are rocky steep and bare;

  Their fence is of the mountain stone,

  And moss and lichen flourish there.

  And when the storm comes from the north

  It lingers near that pastoral spot,

  And, piping through the mossy walls,

  It seems delighted with its lot.

  And let it take its own delight;

  And let it range the pastures bare; [30]

  Until it reach that group of trees,

  – It may not enter there!

  A green unfading grove it is,

  Skirted with many a lesser tree,

  Hazel and holly, beech and oak,

  A bright and flourishing company.

  Precious the shelter of those trees;

  They screen the cottage that I love;

  The sunshine pierces to the roof,

  And the tall pine-trees tower above. [40]

  When first I saw that dear abode,

  It was a lovely winter’s day:

  After a night of perilous storm

  The west wind ruled with gentle sway;

  A day so mild, it might have been

  The first day of the gladsome spring;

  The robins warbled, and I heard

  One solitary throstle sing.

  A stranger, Grasmere, in thy vale,

  All faces then to me unknown, [50]

  I left my sole companion-friend

  To wander out alone.

  Lured by a little winding path,

  I quitted soon the public road,

  A smooth and tempting path it was,

  By sheep and shepherds trod.

  Eastward, toward the lofty hills,

  This pathway led me on

  Until I reached a stately rock,

  With velvet moss o’ergrown. [60]

  With russet oak and tufts of fern

  Its top was richly garlanded;

  Its sides adorned with eglantine

  Bedropped with hips of glossy red.

  There, too, in many a sheltered chink

  The foxglove’s broad leaves flourished fair,

  And silver birch whose purple twigs

  Bend to the softest breathing air.

  Beneath that rock my course I stayed,

  And, looking to its summit high, [70]

  ‘Thou wear’st,’ said I, ‘a splendid garb,

  Here winter keeps his revelry.’

  ‘Full long a dweller on the plains,

  I grieved when summer days were gone;

  No more I’ll grieve; for winter here

  Hath pleasure gardens of his own.

  What need of flowers? The splendid moss

  Is gayer than an April mead;

  More rich its hues of various green,

  Orange, and gold, and glittering red.’ [80]

  – Beside that gay and lovely rock

  There came with merry voice

  A foaming streamlet glancing by;

  It seemed to say ‘Rejoice!’

  My youthful wishes all fulfilled,

  Wishes matured by thoughtful choice,

  I stood an inmate of this vale

  How could I but rejoice?

  Floating Island at Hawkshead, An Incident in the schemes of Nature

  Harmonious powers with Nature work

  On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea:

  Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze

  All in one duteous task agree.

  Once did I see a slip of earth,

  By throbbing waves long undermined,

  Loosed from its hold; – how no one knew

  But all might see it float, obedient to the wind.

  Might see it, from the verdant shore

  Dissevered float upon the lake, [10]

  Float, with its crest of trees adorned

  On which the warbling birds their pastime take.

  Food, shelter, safety there they find

  There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;

  There insects live their lives – and die:

  A peopled world it is; – in size a tiny room.

  And thus through many seasons’ space

  This little island may survive

  But Nature, though we mark her not,

  Will take away – may cease to give. [20]

  Perchance when you are wandering forth

  Upon some vacant sunny day

  Without an object, hope, or fear,

  Thither your eyes may turn – the isle is passed away.

  Buried beneath the glittering lake!

  Its place no longer to be found,

  Yet the lost fragments shall remain,

  To fertilize some other ground.

  Thoughts on my sick-bed

 
And has the remnant of my life

  Been pilfered of this sunny spring?

  And have its own prelusive sounds

  Touched in my heart no echoing string?

  Ah! say not so – the hidden life

  Couchant within this feeble frame

  Hath been enriched by kindred gifts,

  That, undesired, unsought-for, came

  With joyful heart in youthful days

  When fresh each season in its round [10]

  I welcomed the earliest celandine

  Glittering upon the mossy ground

  With busy eyes I pierced the lane

  In quest of known and unknown things,

  – The primrose a lamp on its fortress rock,

  The silent butterfly spreading its wings,

  The violet betrayed by its noiseless breath,

  The daffodil dancing in the breeze,

  The carolling thrush, on his naked perch,

  Towering above the naked trees. [20]

  Our cottage-hearth no longer our home,

  Companions of Nature were we,

  The stirring, the still, the loquacious, the mute –

  To all we gave our sympathy.

  Yet never in those careless days

  When spring-time in rock, field, or bower

  Was but a fountain of earthly hope

  A promise of fruits and the splendid flower.

  No! then I never felt a bliss

  That might with that compare [30]

  Which, piercing to my couch of rest,

  Came on the vernal air.

  When loving friends an offering brought,