The urchin's mind may be like "a weedy garden wild"
— Sawyer, Ann (fl. 1794-1801)
Author
Work Title
Date
1801
Metaphor
The urchin's mind may be like "a weedy garden wild"
Metaphor in Context
For play and mischief: out they flew,
The plague of many an honest clown,
Who, muttering, mourned his broken fence,
And clovered meadow trampled down.
Their toil-worn parents, sore distressed
To feed and clothe each luckless child,
No schooling could afford; their minds
Were like the weedy garden wild.
No bounds their insolence restrain,
No check the little urchins know;
None, save the beadle's lifted staff,
Or stern church warden's angry brow.
(ll. 17-28, pp. 505)
The plague of many an honest clown,
Who, muttering, mourned his broken fence,
And clovered meadow trampled down.
Their toil-worn parents, sore distressed
To feed and clothe each luckless child,
No schooling could afford; their minds
Were like the weedy garden wild.
No bounds their insolence restrain,
No check the little urchins know;
None, save the beadle's lifted staff,
Or stern church warden's angry brow.
(ll. 17-28, pp. 505)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Lonsdale, R. Ed. Eighteenth Century Women Poets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Date of Entry
07/29/2003
