Song II
DOES Pity give, though Fate denies,
And to my wounds her balm impart?
O speak--with those expressive eyes!
Let one low sigh escape thine heart.
The gazing crowd shall never guess
What anxious, watchful Love can see;
Nor know what those soft looks express,
Nor dream that sign is meant for me.
Ah! words are useless, words are vain,
Thy generous sympathy to prove;
And well that sign, those looks explain,
That Clara mourns my hapless love.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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On The Aphorism
'L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes.'
FRIENDSHIP, as some sage poet sings,
Is chasten'd Love, depriv'd of wings,
Without all wish or power to wander;
Less volatile, but not less tender:
Yet says the proverbs'Sly and slow
'Love creeps, even where he cannot go;'
To clip his pinions then is vain,
His old propensities remain;
And she, who years beyond fifteen,
Has counted twenty, may have seen
How rarely unplum'd Love will stay;
He flies notbut he coolly walks away.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Hope
Parody on Lord Strangford's 'Just like Love.'
JUST like Hope is yonder bow,
That from the center bends so low,
Where bright prismatic colours shew
How gems of heavenly radiance glow,
Just like Hope !
Yet if, to the illusion new,
The pilgrim should the arch pursue,
Farther and farther from his view,
It flies; then melts in chilling dew,
Just like Hope !
Ye fade, ethereal hues ! for ever,
While, cold Reason, thy endeavour
Sooths not that sad heart, which never
Glows with Hope.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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The First Swallow
The gorse is yellow on the heath,
The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,
The oaks are budding, and, beneath,
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath, of May.
The welcome guest of settled Spring,
The swallow, too, has come at last;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hailed her as she passed.
Come, summer visitant, attach
To my reed roof your nest of clay,
And let my ear your music catch,
Low twittering underneath the thatch
At the gray dawn of day.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Inscription
On a Stone, in the Church-Yard at Boreham, in
Essex; raised by the Honourable Elizabeth Olmius,
to the memory of Ann Gardner, who died at New
Hall, after a faithful Service of Forty Years.
WHATE'ER of praise, and of regret attend
The grateful servant, and the humble friend,
Where strict integrity and worth unite
To raise the lowly in their Maker's sight,
Are her's; whose faithful service, long approved,
Wept by the mistress whom through life she loved.
Here ends her earthly task; in joyful trust
To share the eternal triumph of the just.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Sonnet XLVIII. To Mrs.
NO more my wearied soul attempts to stray
From sad reality and vain regret,
Nor courts enchanting fiction to allay
Sorrows that sense refuses to forget:
For of calamity so long the prey,
Imagination now has lost her powers,
Nor will her fairy loom again essay
To dress affliction in a robe of flowers.
But if no more the bowers of Fancy bloom,
Let one superior scene attract my view,
Where heaven's pure rays the sacred spot illume,
Let thy loved hand with palm and amaranth strew
The mournful path approaching to the tomb,
While Faith's consoling voice endears the friendly gloom.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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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.'
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Sonnet LXX: On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic
Is there a solitary wretch who hies
To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half-utter'd lamentation, lies
Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink
From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Evening
OH ! soothing hour, when glowing day,
Low in the western wave declines,
And village murmurs die away,
And bright the vesper planet shines;
I love to hear the gale of Even
Breathing along the new-leaf'd copse,
And feel the freshening dew of Heaven,
Fall silently in limpid drops.
For, like a friend's consoling sighs,
That breeze of night to me appears;
And, as soft dew from Pity's eyes,
Descend those pure celestial tears.
Alas ! for those who long have borne,
Like me, a heart by sorrow riven,
Who, but the plaintive winds, will mourn,
What tears will fall, but those of Heaven ?
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Sonnet LX. To An Amiable Girl
MIRANDA! mark where shrinking from the gale,
Its silken leaves yet moist with early dew,
That fair faint flower, the Lily of the vale
Droops its meek head, and looks, methinks, like you!
Wrapp'd in a shadowy veil of tender green,
Its snowy bells a soft perfume dispense,
And bending as reluctant to be seen,
In simple loveliness it sooths the sense.
With bosom bared to meet the garish day,
The glaring Tulip, gaudy, undismay'd,
Offends the eye of taste; that turns away
To seek the Lily in her fragrant shade.
With such unconscious beauty, pensive, mild,
Miranda charms--Nature's soft modest child.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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