Tag: sonnets

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Sonnet XLIV

by Charlotte Smith

Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex.

PRESS’D by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides,
While the loud equinox its pow’r combines,
The sea no more its swelling surge confines,
But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides.
The wild blasts, 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 seaweed 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.

You can read more about Charlotte Smith here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Smith_(writer)

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Sonnet LXXI

by Charlotte Smith

Written at Weymouth in winter.

THE chill waves whiten in the sharp North-east;
Cold, cold the night-blast comes, with sullen sound,
And black and gloomy, like my cheerless breast:
Frowns the dark pier and lonely sea-view round.
Yet a few months–and on the peopled strand
Pleasure shall all her varied forms display;
Nymphs lightly tread the bright reflecting sand,
And proud sails whiten all the summer bay:
Then, from these winds that whistle keen and bleak,
Music’s delightful melodies shall float
O’er the blue waters; but ’tis mine to seek
Rather, some unfrequented shade, remote
From sights and sounds of gaiety–I mourn
All that gave me delight–Ah! never to return

You can read more about Charlotte Smith here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Smith_(writer)

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Evening on Calais Beach

by William Wordsworth

IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouch’d by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;
And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

Perhaps slightly cheating as Wordsworth is referencing the sea from Calais here— known as La Manche, or the sleeve in France, but worth including!

You can read more about William Wordsworth here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

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Sonnet LXX

ON BEING CAUTIONED AGAINST WALKING OVER A HEADLAND OVERLOOKING THE SEA, BECAUSE IT WAS FREQUENTED BY A LUNATIC.

by Charlotte Smith

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.

You can read more about Charlotte Smith here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Smith_(writer)

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Sonnet LXVI

WRITTEN IN A TEMPESTUOUS NIGHT ON THE COAST OF SUSSEX.

Charlotte Smith

THE night-flood rakes upon the stony shore;
Along the rugged cliffs and chalky caves
Mourns the hoarse Ocean, seeming to deplore
All that are buried in his restless waves —
Mined by corrosive tides, the hollow rock
Falls prone, and rushing from its turfy height,
Shakes the broad beach with long-resounding shock,
Loud thundering on the ear of sullen Night;
Above the desolate and stormy deep,
Gleams the wan Moon by floating mist opprest;
Yet here while youth, and health, and labour sleep,
Alone I wander — Calm untroubled rest,
“Nature’s soft nurse,” deserts the high-swoln breast,
And shuns the eyes, that only make to weep!

You can read more about Charlotte Smith here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Smith_(writer)

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On the Sea

By John Keats

It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often ’tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell.
When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.
Oh, ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody—
Sit ye near some old Cavern’s Mouth and brood,
Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired!

You can read more about John Keats here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

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The Sea View


SONNET LXXXIII. THE SEA VIEW

by Charlotte Smith


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,
The summer-sun in purple radiance low,
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!

You can read more about Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Smith_(writer)

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