"Not one short month for ten revolving years, / But pain within my frame its sceptre rears!"
— Cave [later Winscom], Jane (c.1754-1813)
Work Title
Place of Publication
Bristol
Publisher
Printed by N. Biggs
Date
1794
Metaphor
"Not one short month for ten revolving years, / But pain within my frame its sceptre rears!"
Metaphor in Context
AH! why from me art thou for ever flown?
Why deaf to every agonising groan?
Not one short month for ten revolving years,
But pain within my frame its sceptre rears!
In each successive month full twelve long days
And tedious nights my sun withdraws his rays!
Leaves me in silent anguish on my bed,
Afflicting all the members in the head;
Through every particle the torture flies,
But centres in the temples, brain, and eyes;
The efforts of the hands and feet are vain,
While bows the head with agonising pain;
While heaves the breast th' unutterable sigh,
And the big tear drops from the languid eye.
For ah! my children want a mother's care,
A husband too should due assistance share;
Myself for action formed, would fain through life
Be found th' assiduous, valuable wife;
But now, behold, I live unfit for aught;
Inactive half my days except in thought,
And this so vague while torture clogs my hours,
I sigh, 'Oh, 'twill derange my mental powers,
Or but its dire excess dissolve my sight,
And thus entomb me in perpetual night!'
(ll. 1-24, p. 378)
Why deaf to every agonising groan?
Not one short month for ten revolving years,
But pain within my frame its sceptre rears!
In each successive month full twelve long days
And tedious nights my sun withdraws his rays!
Leaves me in silent anguish on my bed,
Afflicting all the members in the head;
Through every particle the torture flies,
But centres in the temples, brain, and eyes;
The efforts of the hands and feet are vain,
While bows the head with agonising pain;
While heaves the breast th' unutterable sigh,
And the big tear drops from the languid eye.
For ah! my children want a mother's care,
A husband too should due assistance share;
Myself for action formed, would fain through life
Be found th' assiduous, valuable wife;
But now, behold, I live unfit for aught;
Inactive half my days except in thought,
And this so vague while torture clogs my hours,
I sigh, 'Oh, 'twill derange my mental powers,
Or but its dire excess dissolve my sight,
And thus entomb me in perpetual night!'
(ll. 1-24, p. 378)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 3 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1794, 1795, 1800)
See Poems on Various Subjects, Entertaining, Elegiac, and Religious, by Miss Cave, Now Mrs. Winscom. The Fourth Edition, Corrected and Improved, With Many Additional Poems, Never Before Published. Bristol: Printed by N. Biggs, 1794). <Link to ESTC>
Reading Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989).
See Poems on Various Subjects, Entertaining, Elegiac, and Religious, by Miss Cave, Now Mrs. Winscom. The Fourth Edition, Corrected and Improved, With Many Additional Poems, Never Before Published. Bristol: Printed by N. Biggs, 1794). <Link to ESTC>
Reading Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989).
Date of Entry
07/28/2003
