Ode To Despair
FROM THE NOVEL OF EMMELINE.
THOU spectre of terrific mien!
Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye,
In whose fierce train each form is seen
That drives sick Reason to insanity!
I woo thee with unusual prayer,
'Grim visaged, comfortless Despair:'
Approach; in me a willing victim find,
Who seeks thine iron sway--and calls thee kind!
Ah! hide for ever from my sight
The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay,
Portrays some vision of delight,
Then bids the fairy tablet fade away;
While in dire contrast, to mine eyes,
Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise,
And Memory draws from Pleasure's wither'd flower,
Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!
I bid the traitor Love adieu!
Who to this fond believing bosom came,
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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Ode To The Poppy
Written by a deceased friend.
NOT for the promise of the labour'd field,
Not for the good the yellow harvests yield,
I bend at Ceres' shrine;
For dull, to human eyes, appear
The golden glories of the year,
Alas!--a melancholy worship's mine,
I hail the goddess for her scarlet flower;
Thou brilliant weed,
That dost so far exceed
The richest gifts gay Flora can bestow:
Heedless I pass'd thee, in life's morning hour,
(Thou comforter of woe)
Till sorrow taught me to confess thy power.
In early days, when Fancy cheats,
A varied wreath I wove,
Of laughing Spring's luxuriant sweets,
To deck ungrateful Love:
The rose, or thorn, my labours crown'd;
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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The Female Exile
Written at Brighthelmstone in Nov. 1792.
NOVEMBER'S chill blast on the rough beach is howling,
The surge breaks afar, and then foams to the shore,
Dark clouds o'er the sea gather heavy and scowling,
And the white cliffs re-echo the wild wintry roar.
Beneath that chalk rock, a fair stranger reclining,
Has found on damp sea-weed a cold lonely seat;
Her eyes fill'd with tears, and her heart with repining,
She starts at the billows that burst at her feet.
There, day after day, with an anxious heart heaving,
She watches the waves where they mingle with air;
For the sail which, alas! all her fond hopes deceiving,
May bring only tidings to add to her care.
Loose stream to wild winds those fair flowing tresses,
Once woven with garlands of gay summer flowers;
Her dress unregarded, bespeaks her distresses,
And beauty is blighted by grief's heavy hours.
Her innocent children, unconscious of sorrow,
To seek the gloss'd shell, or the crimson weed stray;
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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Thirty-Eight
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 at the sober age,
We view'd with mingled scorn and hate;
In whose sharp words, or sharper face,
With thoughtless mirth we loved to trace
The sad effects of--Thirty-eight.
Till saddening, sickening at the view
We learn'd to dread what Time might do;
And then preferr'd 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,
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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Apostrophe
TO AN OLD TREE.
WHERE thy broad branches brave the bitter North,
Like rugged, indigent, unheeded, worth,
Lo! Vegetation's guardian hands emboss
Each giant limb with fronds of studded moss,
That clothes the bark in many a fringed fold
Begemm'd with scarlet shields, and cups of gold,
Which, to the wildest winds their webs oppose,
And mock the arrowy sleet, or weltering snows.
--But to the warmer West the woodbine fair
With tassels that perfumed the summer air,
The mantling clematis, whose feathery bowers
Waved in festoons with nightshade's purple flowers,
The silver weed, whose corded fillets wove
Round thy pale rind, even as deceitful love
Of mercenary beauty would engage
The dotard fondness of decrepit age;
All these, that during summer's halcyon days
With their green canopies conceal'd thy sprays,
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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Fragment
Descriptive of the miseries of War; from a Poem
called 'The Emigrants,' printed in 1793.
TO a wild mountain, whose bare summit hides
Its broken eminence in clouds; whose steeps
Are dark with woods: where the receding rocks
Are worn with torrents of dissolving snow;
A wretched woman, pale and breathless, flies,
And, gazing round her, listens to the sound
Of hostile footsteps:--No! they die away--
Nor noise remains, but of the cataract,
Or surly breeze of night, that mutters low
Among the thickets, where she trembling seeks
A temporary shelter--Clasping close
To her quick throbbing heart her sleeping child,
All she could rescue of the innocent group
That yesterday surrounded her--Escaped
Almost by miracle!--Fear, frantic Fear,
Wing'd her weak feet; yet, half repenting now
Her headlong haste, she wishes she had staid
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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The Peasant Of The Alps
FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA.
WHERE cliffs arise by winter crown'd,
And through dark groves of pine around,
Down the deep chasms the snow-fed torrents foam,
Within some hollow, shelter'd from the storms,
The Peasant of the Alps his cottage forms,
And builds his humble, happy home.
Unenvied is the rich domain,
That far beneath him on the plain
Waves its wide harvests and its olive groves;
More dear to him his hut with plantain thatch'd,
Where long his unambitious heart attach'd,
Finds all he wishes, all he loves.
There dwells the mistress of his heart,
And Love , who teaches every art,
Has bid him dress the spot with fondest care;
When borrowing from the vale its fertile soil,
He climbs the precipice with patient toil,
To plant her favourite flowerets there.
With native shrubs, a hardy race,
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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The 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 is come at last;
Just at sun-set, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hail'd her as she pass'd.
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.
As fables tell, an Indian Sage,
The Hindostani woods among,
Could in his desert hermitage,
As if 'twere mark'd in written page,
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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April
GREEN o'er the copses spring's soft hues are spreading,
High wave the reeds in the transparent floods,
The oak its sear and sallow foliage shedding,
From their moss'd cradles start its infant buds.
Pale as the tranquil tide of summer's ocean,
The willow now its slender leaf unveils;
And through the sky with swiftly fleeting motion,
Driv'n by the wind, the rack of April sails.
Then, as the gust declines, the stealing showers
Fall fresh and noiseless; while at closing day
The low sun gleams on moist and half-blown flowers,
That promise garlands for approaching May.
Bless'd are yon peasant children, simply singing,
Who through the new-sprung grass rejoicing rove;
More bless'd! to whom the time , fond thought is bringing,
Of friends expected, or returning love.
The pensive wanderer bless'd, to whom reflection
Points out some future views that soothe his mind;
Me how unlike!--whom cruel recollection
But tells of comfort I shall never find!
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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A Walk In The Shrubbery
To the Cistus or Rock Rose, a beautiful plant, whose flowers
expand, and fall off twice in twenty-four hours.
THE Florists, who have fondly watch'd,
Some curious bulb from hour to hour,
And, to ideal charms attach'd,
Derive their glory from a flower;
Or they, who lose in crouded rooms,
Spring's tepid suns and balmy air,
And value Flora's fairest blooms,
But in proportion as they're rare;
Feel not the pensive pleasures known
To him, who, thro' the morning mist,
Explores the bowery shrubs new blown,
A moralizing Botanist.
He marks, with colours how profuse
Some are design'd to please the eye;
While beauty some combine with use,
In admirable harmony.
The fruit buds, shadow'd red and white,
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poem by Charlotte Smith
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