Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works
Page 6
Think; nor impatient at a feather’s weight,
Mar the uncommon blessings of thy fate!
SONNET LXXIV. THE WINTER NIGHT.
“SLEEP, that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,”
Forsakes me, while the chill and sullen blast,
As my sad soul recalls its sorrows past,
Seems like a summons bidding me prepare
For the last sleep of death — Murmuring I hear
The hollow wind around the ancient towers,
While night and silence reign; and cold and drear
The darkest gloom of middle winter lowers;
But wherefore fear existence such as mine,
To change for long and undisturb’d repose?
Ah! when this suffering being I resign
And o’er my miseries the tomb shall close,
By her, whose loss in anguish I deplore,
I shall be laid, and feel that loss no more!
SONNET LXXV.
WHERE the wild woods and pathless forests frown,
The darkling Pilgrim seeks his unknown way,
Till on the grass he throws him weary down,
To wait in broken sleep the dawn of day:
Through boughs just waving in the silent air,
With pale capricious light the summer moon
Chequers his humid couch; while Fancy there,
That loves to wanton in the night’s deep noon,
Calls from the mossy roots and fountain edge
Fair visionary Nymphs that haunt the shade,
Or Naiads rising from the whispering sedge:
And, ‘mid the beauteous group, his dear loved maid
Seems beckoning him with smiles to join the train:
Then, starting from his dream, he feels his woes again!
SONNET LXXVI. TO A YOUNG MAN ENTERING THE WORLD.
GO now, ingenious youth! — The trying hour
Is come: The world demands that thou shouldst go
To active life: There titles, wealth, and power,
May all be purchased — Yet I joy to know
Thou wilt not pay their price. The base control
Of petty despots in their pedant reign
Already hast thou felt; — and high disdain
Of tyrants is imprinted on thy soul —
Not, where mistaken Glory, in the field
Rears her red banner, be thou ever found:
But, against proud Oppression raise the shield
Of patriot daring — So shalt thou renown’d
For the best virtues live ; or that denied
May’st die, as Hampden or as Sydney died!
SONNET LXXVII. TO THE INSECT OF THE GOSSAMER.
SMALL, viewless aeronaut, that by the line
Of Gossamer suspended, in mid air
Float’st on a sun beam — Living atom, where
Ends thy breeze-guided voyage; — with what design,
In ether dost thou launch thy form minute,
Mocking the eye? — Alas! before the veil
Of denser clouds shall hide thee, the pursuit
Of the keen Swift may end thy fairy sail! —
Thus on the golden thread that Fancy weaves
Buoyant, as Hope’s illusive flattery breathes,
The young and visionary poet leaves
Life’s dull realities, while sevenfold wreaths
Of rainbow-light around his head revolve.
Ah! soon at Sorrow’s touch the radiant dreams dissolve!
SONNET LXXVIII. SNOWDROPS.
WAN Heralds of the sun and summer gale!
That seem just fallen from infant Zephyrs’ wing;
Not now, as once, with heart revived I hail
Your modest buds, that for the brow of Spring
Form the first simple garland — Now no more
Escaping for a moment all my cares,
Shall I, with pensive, silent, step explore
The woods yet leafless; where to chilling airs
Your green and pencil’d blossoms, trembling, wave.
Ah! ye soft, transient, children of the ground,
More fair was she on whose untimely grave
Flow my unceasing tears! Their varied round
The Seasons go; while I through all repine:
For fix’d regret, and hopeless grief are mine.
SONNET LXXIX. TO THE GODDESS OF BOTANY.
OF Folly weary, shrinking from the view
Of Violence and Fraud, allow’d to take
All peace from humble life; I would forsake
Their haunts for ever, and, sweet Nymph! with you
Find shelter; where my tired, and tear-swollen eyes
Among your silent shades of soothing hue,
Your “bells and florrets of unnumber’d dyes”
Might rest — And learn the bright varieties
That from your lovely hands are fed with dew;
And every veined leaf, that trembling sighs
In mead or woodland; or in wilds remote,
Or lurk with mosses in the humid caves,
Mantle the cliffs, on dimpling rivers float,
Or stream from coral rocks beneath the ocean’s waves.
SONNET LXXX. TO THE INVISIBLE MOON.
DARK and conceal’d art thou, soft Evening’s queen,
And Melancholy’s votaries that delight
To watch thee, gliding through the blue serene,
Now vainly seek thee on the brow of night —
Mild Sorrow, such as hope has not forsook,
May love to muse beneath thy silent reign;
But I prefer from some steep rock to look
On the obscure and fluctuating main,
What time the martial star with lurid glare,
Portentous, gleams above the troubled deep;
Or the red comet shakes his blazing hair;
Or on the fire-ting’d waves the lightnings leap;
While thy fair beams illume another sky,
And shine for beings less accursed than I.
SONNET LXXXI. HE MAY BE ENVIED, WHO WITH TRANQUIL BREAST
HE may be envied, who with tranquil breast
Can wander in the wild and woodland scene,
When summer’s glowing hands have newly dress’d
The shadowy forests, and the copses green;
Who, unpursued by care, can pass his hours
Where briony and woodbine fringe the trees,
On thymy banks reposing, while the bees
Murmur “their fairy tunes, in praise of flowers;”
Or on the rock with ivy clad, and fern
That overhangs the ozier-whispering bed
Of some clear current, bid his wishes turn
From this bad world; and by calm reason led,
Knows, in refined retirement, to possess
By friendship hallow’d — rural happiness!
SONNET LXXXII. TO THE SHADE OF BURNS.
MUTE is thy wild harp, now, O bard sublime!
Who, amid Scotia’s mountain solitude,
Great Nature taught to “build the lofty rhyme,”
And even beneath the daily pressure, rude,
Of labouring poverty, thy generous blood,
Fired with the love of freedom — Not subdued
Wert thou by thy low fortune: but a time
Like this we live in, when the abject chime
Of echoing parasite is best approved,
Was not for thee — Indignantly is fled
Thy noble spirit; and no longer moved
By all the ills o’er which thine heart has bled,
Associate, worthy of the illustrious dead,
Enjoys with them “the liberty it loved.”
SONNET LXXXIII. THE SEA VIEW.
THE upland shepherd, as reclined he lies
On the soft turf that clothes the mountain brow,
Marks the bright sea-line mingling with the skies;
Or from his course celestial, sinking slow,
Blaze on the western waters; the wide scene
Magnificent, and tranquil, seems to spread
Even o’er the rustic’s breast a joy serene,
When, like dark plague-spots by the demons shed,
Charged deep with death, upon the waves, far seen,
Move the war-freighted ships; and fierce and red,
Flash their destructive fires — The mangled dead
And dying victims then pollute the flood.
Ah, thus man spoils Heaven’s glorious works with blood!
SONNET LXXXIV. TO THE MUSE.
WILT thou forsake me who in life’s bright May
Lent warmer lustre to the radiant morn;
And even o’er summer scenes by tempests torn,
Shed with illusive light the dewy ray
Of pensive pleasure? Wilt thou, while the day
Of saddening autumn closes, as I mourn
In languid, hopeless sorrow, far away
Bend thy soft step, and never more return? —
Crush’d to the earth, by bitterest anguish press’d,
From my faint eyes thy graceful form recedes;
Thou canst not heal a heart like mine that bleeds;
But, when in quiet earth that heart shall rest,
Haply mayst thou one sorrowing vigil keep,
Where Pity and Remembrance bend and weep!
QUOTATIONS AND NOTES.
QUOTATIONS, NOTES,
AND
EXPLANATIONS.
SONNET I. — line 13.
Ah! then, how dear the Muse’s favours cost,
If those paint sorrow best — who feel it most!
“The well-sung woes shall soothe my pensive ghost;
He best can paint them who shall feel them most.”
Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, 366th line.
SONNET II. — line 3.
Anemonies, that spangled every grove.
Anemony Nemeroso. The wood Anemony.
SONNET III. — line 1.
The idea from the 43d Sonnet of Petrarch. Secondo parte. “Quel rosigniuol, che si soave piagne.
SONNET V. — line 2.
Your turf, your flowers among. “Whose turf, whose shades, whose flowers among.”
Gray.
Line 9. Aruna!
The river Arun.
SONNET VI. — line 12.
“For me the vernal garland blooms no more.”
Pope’s Imit. 1st Ode 4th Book of Horace.
Line 13. ”Misery’s love.”
Shakspeare’s King John.
SONNET VII. — line 4. ”On the night’s dull ear.”
Shakspeare.
Line 5.
Whether on Spring —
alludes to the supposed migration of the nightingale.
Line 7.
The pensive Muse shall own thee for her mate.
“Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate.
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.”
Milton’s First Sonnet.
SONNET VIII. — line 14.
Have power to cure all sadness — but despair.
“To the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair.”
Paradise Lost, Fourth Book.
SONNET IX. — line 10.
And laugh at tears themselves have forced to flow.
“And hard unkindness’ alter’d eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow.”
Gray.
SONNET XI. — line 4.
Float in light vision round my aching head!
“Float in light vision round the poet’s head.”
Mason.
Line 7.
And the poor sea boy, in the rudest hour,
Enjoys thee more than he who wears a crown.
“Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude impetuous surge?” &c.
Shakspeare’s Henry IV.
SONNET XII. — line 8. “And suits the mournful temper of my soul.”
Young.
SONNET XIII. — line 1. “Pommi ove’l sol, occide i fiori e l’erba.”
Petrarch, Sonnetto 112. Parte primo.
SONNET XIV. — line 1. “Erano i capei d’oro all aura sparsi.”
Sonnetto 69. Parte primo.
SONNET XV. — line 1. “Se lamentar augelli o verdi fronde.”
Sonnetto 21. Parte secondo.
SONNET XVI. — line 1. “Valle che de lamenti miei se piena.”
Sonnetto 33. Parte secondo.
SONNET XVII. — line 1.
“Scrivo in te l’amato nome
Di colei, per cui, mi moro.”
This is not meant as a translation; the original is much longer, and full of images, which could not be introduced in a Sonnet. And some of them, though very beautiful in the Italian, would not appear to advantage in an English dress.
SONNET XXI. — line 5.
“Poor maniac.”
See the story of the lunatic.
“Is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he possesses his reason, or after he has lost it? — Full of hope you go to gather flowers in winter, and are grieved not to find any, and do not know why they cannot be found.” Sorrows of Werter. Volume second.
Line 8. “And drink delicious poison from thine eye.”
Pope.
SONNET XXII. — line 1.
“I climb steep rocks, I break my way through copses, among thorns and briers which tear me to pieces, and I feel a little relief.” Sorrows of Werter. Volume first.
SONNET XXIII. — line 1.
“The greater Bear, favourite of all the constellations; for when I left you of an evening it used to shine opposite your window.” Sorrows of Werter. Volume second.
SONNET XXIV. — line 1.
“At the corner of the church-yard which looks towards the fields, there are two lime trees — it is there I wish to rest.” Sorrows of Werter. Volume second.
SONNET XXV. — line 1.
“May my death remove every obstacle to your
happiness. — Be at peace, I intreat you, be at peace.” Sorrows of Werter. Volume second.
Line 11.
When worms shall feed on this devoted heart,
Where even thy image shall be found no more.
From a line in Rousseau’s Eloisa.
SONNET XXVI. — line 5. For with the infant Otway, lingering here.
Otway was born at Trotten, a village in Sussex. Of Woolbeding, another village on the banks of the Arun (which runs through them both), his father was rector. Here it was therefore that he probably passed many of his early years. The Arun is here an inconsiderable stream, winding in a channel deeply worn, among meadow, heath, and wood.
SONNET XXVII. — line 4. ”Content, and careless of to-morrow’s fare.”
Thomson.
SONNET XXVIII. — line 9.
“Balmy hand to bind.”
Collins.
SONNET XXX. — line 6.
Bindwith.
The plant Clematis, Bindwith, Virgin’s Bower, or Traveller’s Joy, which, towards the end of June,
begins to cover the hedges and sides of rocky hollows with its beautiful foliage, and flowers of a yellowish white, of an agreeable fragrance; these are succeeded by seed pods that bear some resemblance to feathers or hair, whence it is sometimes called Old Man’s Beard.
Line 9.
Banks, which inspired thy Otway’s plaintive strain!
Wilds, — whose lorn echoes learn’d the deeper tone
Of Collins’ powerful shell!
Collins, as well as Otway, was a native of this country, and probably at some period of his life an inhabitant of this neighbourhood, since in his beautiful Ode on the death of Colonel Ross, he says,
“The muse shall still, with social aid,
&
nbsp; Her gentlest promise keep;
E’en humble Harting’s cottaged vale
Shall learn the sad repeated tale,
And bid her shepherds weep.”
And in the Ode to Pity;
“Wild Arun too has heard thy strains,
And Echo, ‘midst thy native plains,
Been soothed with Pity’s lute.”
SONNET XXXI. — line 2.
Alpine flowers.
An infinite variety of plants are found on these hills, particularly about this spot: many sorts of
Orchis and Cistus of singular beauty, with several others.
SONNET XXXIII. — line 9.
Thy natives. Otway, Collins, Hayley.
SONNET XLII. — line 8.
The shrieking night-jar sail on heavy wing.
The night-jar or night hawk, a dark bird not so big as a rook, which is frequently seen of an evening on the downs. It has a short heavy flight, then rests on the ground, and again, uttering a mournful cry, flits before the traveller, to whom its appearance is supposed by the peasants to portend misfortune. As I have never seen it dead, I know not to what species it belongs.