1.3.2: Charlotte Smith, Elegiac Sonnets and other Poems

Sonnet II: Written at the Close of Spring (Audio)

Sonnet II: Written at the Close of Spring (Text)

The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove,
    Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew,
Anemonies, that spangled every grove,
    The primrose wan, and hare-bell mildly blue.
No more shall violets linger in the dell,
    Or purple orchis variegate the plain,
Till Spring again shall call forth every bell,
    And dress with humid hands her wreaths again.--
Ah! poor humanity! so frail, so fair,
    Are the fond visions of thy early day,
Till tyrant passion and corrosive care
    Bid all thy fairy colours fade away!
Another May new buds and flowers shall bring;
Ah! why has happiness--no second spring?

Sonnet LXX: On Being Cautioned Against Walking Over a Headland Overlooking the Sea (Audio)

Sonnet LXX: On Being Cautioned Against Walking Over a Headland Overlooking the Sea (Text)

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.