Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith Read online

  Strange sounds are heard, and mournful melodies,

  As of night wanderers, who their woes bewail

  Here, by his native stream, at such an hour,

  Pity’s own Otway I methinks could meet,

  And hear his deep sighs swell the sadden’d wind!

  O Melancholy! — such thy magic power,

  That to the soul these dreams are often sweet,

  And sooth the pensive visionary mind!

  SONNET XXXIII. TO THE NAIAD OF THE ARUN.

  GO, rural Naiad! wind thy stream along

  Through woods and wilds: then seek the ocean caves

  Where sea-nymphs meet their coral rocks among,

  To boast the various honours of their waves!

  ’Tis but a little, o’er thy shallow tide,

  That toiling trade her burden’d vessel leads;

  But laurels grow luxuriant on thy side,

  And letters live along thy classic meads.

  Lo! where ‘mid British bards thy natives shine!

  And now another poet helps to raise

  Thy glory high — the poet of the MINE,

  Whose brilliant talents are his smallest praise:

  And who, to all that genius can impart,

  Adds the cool head, and the unblemish’d heart.

  SONNET XXXIV. TO A FRIEND.

  CHARM’D by thy suffrage, shall I yet aspire

  (All inauspicious as my fate appears,

  By troubles darken’d, that increase with years,)

  To guide the crayon, or to touch the lyre?

  Ah me! — the sister Muses still require

  A spirit free from all intrusive fears,

  Nor will they deign to wipe away the tears

  Of vain regret, that dim their sacred fire.

  But when thy envied sanction crowns my lays,

  A ray of pleasure lights my languid mind,

  For well I know the value of thy praise;

  And to how few the flattering meed confined,

  That thou, — their highly favour’d brows to bind;

  Wilt weave green myrtle and unfading bays.

  SONNET XXXV. TO FORTITUDE.

  NYMPH of the rock! whose dauntless spirit braves

  The beating storm, and bitter winds that howl

  Round thy cold breast; and hear’st the bursting waves

  And the deep thunder with unshaken soul;

  Oh come! — and show how vain the cares that press

  On my weak bosom — and how little worth

  Is the false fleeting meteor, Happiness,

  That still misleads the wanderers of the earth!

  Strengthen’d by thee, this heart shall cease to melt

  O’er ills that poor humanity must bear;

  Nor friends estranged, or ties dissolved be felt

  To leave regret, and fruitless anguish there:

  And when at length it heaves its latest sigh,

  Thou and mild Hope shall teach me how to die.

  SONNET XXXVI. SHOULD THE LONE WANDERER, FAINTING ON HIS WAY

  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,

  The sense of sorrow he awhile may lose;

  So have I sought thy flowers, fair Poesy!

  So charm’d my way with Friendship and the Muse.

  But darker now grows life’s unhappy day,

  Dark with new clouds of evil yet to come,

  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.

  SONNET XXXVII. SENT TO THE HON. MRS. O’NEILL, WITH PAINTED FLOWERS.

  The poet’s fancy takes from Flora’s realm

  Her buds and leaves to dress fictitious powers,

  With the green olive shades Minerva’s helm,

  And give to Beauty’s queen, the queen of flowers.

  But what gay blossoms of luxuriant spring,

  With rose, mimosa, amaranth entwined,

  Shall fabled Sylphs and fairy people bring,

  As a just emblem of the lovely mind?

  In vain the mimic pencil tries to blend

  The glowing dyes that dress the flowery race,

  Scented and colour’d by a hand divine!

  Ah! not less vainly would the Muse pretend,

  On her weak lyre, to sing the native grace

  And native goodness of a soul like thine!

  SONNET XXXVIII. FROM THE NOVEL OF EMMELINE.

  WHEN welcome slumber sets my spirit free,

  Forth to fictitious happiness it flies,

  And where Elysian bowers of bliss arise,

  I seem, my Emmeline — to meet with thee!

  Ah! Fancy then, dissolving human ties,

  Gives me the wishes of my soul to see;

  Tears of fond pity fill thy soften’d eyes:

  In heavenly harmony — our hearts agree.

  Alas! these joys are mine in dreams alone,

  When cruel Reason abdicates her throne!

  Her harsh return condemns me to complain

  Through life unpitied, unrelieved, unknown.

  And as the dear delusions leave my brain,

  She bids the truth recur — with aggravated pain.

  SONNET XXXIX. TO NIGHT. FROM THE SAME.

  I LOVE thee, mournful, sober-suited Night!

  When the faint moon, yet lingering in her wane,

  And veil’d in clouds, with pale uncertain light

  Hangs o’er the waters of the restless main.

  In deep depression sunk, the enfeebled mind

  Will to the deaf cold elements complain,

  And tell the embosom’d grief, however vain,

  To sullen surges and the viewless wind.

  Though no repose on thy dark breast I find,

  I still enjoy thee — cheerless as thou art;

  For in thy quiet gloom the exhausted heart

  Is calm, though wretched; hopeless, yet resigned.

  While to the winds and waves its sorrows given,

  May reach — though lost on earth — the ear of Heaven!

  SONNET XL. FROM THE SAME.

  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,

  The silent wave, with rich reflection glows:

  Alas! can tranquil nature give me rest,

  Or scenes of beauty soothe me to repose?

  Can the soft lustre of the sleeping main,

  Yon radiant heaven, or all creation’s charms,

  “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 unextinguish’d love!

  SONNET XLI. TO TRANQUILLITY.

  IN this tumultuous sphere, for thee unfit,

  How seldom art thou found — Tranquillity!

  Unless ’tis when with mild and downcast eye

  By the low cradles thou delight’st to sit

  Of sleeping infants — watching the soft breath,

  And bidding the sweet slumberers easy lie;

  Or sometimes hanging o’er the bed of death,

  Where the poor languid sufferer — hopes to die.

  Oh, beauteous sister of the halcyon peace!

  I sure shall find thee in that heavenly scene

  Where care and anguish shall their power resign;

  Where hope alike, and vain regret shall cease,

  And memory — lost in happiness ser
ene,

  Repeat no more — that misery has been mine!

  SONNET XLII. COMPOSED DURING A WALK ON THE DOWNS, NOV. 1787.

  THE dark and pillowy cloud, the sallow trees,

  Seem o’er the ruins of the year to mourn;

  And, cold and hollow, the inconstant breeze

  Sobs through the falling leaves and wither’d fern.

  O’er the tall brow of yonder chalky bourn,

  The evening shades their gather’d darkness fling,

  While, by the lingering light, I scarce discern

  The shrieking night-jar sail on heavy wing.

  Ah! yet a little — and propitious spring

  Crown’d with fresh flowers shall wake the woodland strain;

  But no gay change revolving seasons bring

  To call forth pleasure from the soul of pain;

  Bid Syren Hope resume her long-lost part,

  And chase the vulture Care — that feeds upon the heart.

  SONNET XLIII. THE UNHAPPY EXILE, WHOM HIS FATES CONFINE

  THE unhappy exile, whom his fates confine

  To the bleak coast of some unfriendly isle,

  Cold, barren, desert, where no harvests smile,

  But thirst and hunger on the rocks repine;

  When, from some promontory’s fearful brow,

  Sun after sun he hopeless sees decline

  In the broad shipless sea — perhaps may know

  Such heartless pain, such blank despair as mine;

  And, if a flattering cloud appears to show

  The fancied semblance of a distant sail,

  Then melts away — anew his spirits fail,

  While the lost hope but aggravates his woe!

  Ah! so for me delusive fancy toils,

  Then, from contrasted truth — my feeble soul recoils.

  SONNET XLIV. WRITTEN IN THE CHURCH-YARD AT MIDDLETON, IN SUSSEX.

  PRESS’D 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 sea-weed mingled, on the shore,

  Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave;

  But vain to them the winds and waters rave;

  They hear the warring elements no more:

  While I am doom’d — by life’s long storm opprest,

  To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.

  SONNET XLV. ON LEAVING A PART OF SUSSEX.

  FAREWELL, Aruna! — on whose varied shore

  My early vows were paid to Nature’s shrine,

  When thoughtless joy, and infant hope were mine,

  And whose lorn stream has heard me since deplore

  Too many sorrows! Sighing I resign

  Thy solitary beauties — and no more

  Or on thy rocks or in thy woods recline,

  Or on the heath, by moonlight lingering, pore

  On air-drawn phantoms — while in Fancy’s ear,

  As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell,

  The Enthusiast of the Lyre who wander’d here,

  Seems yet to strike his visionary shell,

  Of power to call forth Pity’s tenderest tear,

  Or wake wild Frenzy — from her hideous cell!

  SONNET XLVI. WRITTEN AT PENHURST, IN AUTUMN 1788.

  YE towers sublime! deserted now and drear!

  Ye woods! deep sighing to the hollow blast,

  The musing wanderer loves to linger near,

  While History points to all your glories past:

  And startling from their haunts the timid deer,

  To trace the walks obscured by matted fern,

  Which Waller’s soothing lyre were wont to hear,

  But where now clamours the discordant heron!

  The spoiling hand of Time may overturn

  These lofty battlements, and quite deface

  The fading canvass whence we love to learn

  Sydney’s keen look, and Sacharissa’s grace;

  But fame and beauty still defy decay,

  Saved by the historic page — the poet’s tender lay!

  SONNET XLVII. TO FANCY.

  THEE, queen of shadows! — shall I still invoke,

  Still love the scenes thy sportive pencil drew,

  When on mine eyes the early radiance broke

  Which show’d the beauteous rather than the true!

  Alas! long since those glowing tints are dead,

  And now ’tis thine in darkest hues to dress

  The spot where pale Experience hangs her head

  O’er the sad grave of murder’d Happiness!

  Through thy false medium, then, no longer view’d,

  May fancied pain and fancied pleasure fly,

  And I, as from me all thy dreams depart,

  Be to my wayward destiny subdued:

  Nor suffer perfection with a poet’s eye,

  Nor suffer anguish with a poet’s heart!

  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.

  SONNET XLIX. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA.

  Supposed to have been written in a church-yard, over

  the grave of a young woman of nineteen.

  O THOU! who sleep’st where hazle-bands entwine

  The vernal grass, with paler violets drest;

  I would, sweet maid! thy humble bed were mine,

  And mine thy calm and enviable rest.

  For never more by human ills opprest

  Shall thy soft spirit fruitlessly repine:

  Thou canst not now thy fondest hopes resign

  Even in the hour that should have made thee blest.

  Light lies the turf upon thy virgin breast;

  And lingering here, to love and sorrow true,

  The youth who once thy simple heart possest

  Shall mingle tears with April’s early dew;

  While still for him shall faithful Memory save

  Thy form and virtues from the silent grave.

  SONNET L. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA.

  FAREWELL, ye lawns! — by fond remembrance blest,

  As witnesses of gay unclouded hours;

  Where, to maternal friendships’ bosom prest,

  My happy childhood past among your bowers.

  Ye wood-walks wild! — where leaves and fairy flowers

  By Spring’s luxuriant hand are strewn anew;

  Rocks! — whence with shadowy grace rude nature low’rs

  O’er glens and haunted streams! — a long adieu!

  And you! — O promised Happiness! — whose voice

  Deluded Fancy heard in every grove,

  Bidding this tender, trusting heart, rejoice

  In the bright prospect of unfailing love:

  Though lost to me — still may thy smile serene

  Bless the dear lord of this regretted scene.

  SONNET LI. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA.

  Supposed to have been written in the Hebrides.

  ON this
lone island, whose unfruitful breast

  Feeds but the summer-shepherd’s little flock

  With scanty herbage from the half-clothed rock,

  Where ospreys, cormorants, and sea-mews rest;

  Even in a scene so desolate and rude

  I could with thee for months and years be blest;

  And of thy tenderness and love possest,

  Find all my world in this wild solitude!

  When Summer suns these Northern seas illume,

  With thee admire the light’s reflected charms,

  And when drear Winter spreads his cheerless gloom,

  Still find Elysium in thy shelt’ring arms:

  For thou to me canst sovereign bliss impart,

  Thy mind my empire — and my throne thy heart.

  SONNET LII. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA. THE PILGRIM.

  FAULTERING and sad the unhappy pilgrim roves,

  Who, on the eve of bleak December’s night,

  Divided far from all he fondly loves,

  Journeys alone, along the giddy height

  Of these steep cliffs, and as the sun’s last ray

  Fades in the West, sees, from the rocky verge,

  Dark tempests scowling o’er the shortened day,

  And hears, with ear appall’d, the impetuous surge

  Beneath him thunder! — So, with heart oppress’d,

  Alone, reluctant, desolate, and slow,

  By Friendship’s cheering radiance now unblest,

  Along life’s rudest path I seem to go;

  Nor see where yet the anxious heart may rest,

  That, trembling at the past — recoils from future woe.

  SONNET LIII. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA. THE LAPLANDER.

  THE shivering native, who by Tenglio’s side

  Beholds with fond regret the parting light

  Sink far away, beneath the darkening tide,

  And leave him to long months of dreary night,

  Yet knows, that springing from the eastern wave

  The sun’s glad beams shall re-illume his way,

  And from the snows secured — within his cave