"Environ'd as she is by every ill, / To her heart's first impression faithful still,"
— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)
Author
Place of Publication
Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for John Ballantyne and Co. London. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme
Date
1810
Metaphor
"Environ'd as she is by every ill, / To her heart's first impression faithful still,"
Metaphor in Context
See, in its speaking tints, the ruin'd maid,[1]
By solemn vows, and tender trust betray'd,
From perjur'd love, with bursting grief, depart,
His gold refusing, who recalls his heart!
Yet, 'mid the prospect dire of all that strows
The path of Woman with the sharpest woes,
O'er his deep crimes her darkest fears impend;
For their dread doom her bitterest tears descend!
Environ'd as she is by every ill,
To her heart's first impression faithful still,
Round his lov'd image yet resistless rise
Thrill'd recollections of their former joys;
Those pleading accents! that impassion'd sigh!
The shining ardours of that lucid eye,
Whose glance might thaw, with its enamour'd glow,
"On Dian's lap the consecrated snow!"
Smote by sore famine and the Winter's wind,
To keen reproach and taunting scorn consign'd,
And oft to her chill'd bosom pressing wild,
Pledge of his love, her little, helpless child,
Near the false youth she strays, unseen, unknown,
His fate more dreading, than she dreads her own.
While Love's deserter, Fashion's bubbled tool,
Compound abhorr'd of villain and of fool!
His hours in flatter'd ostentation wastes,
Ere to the orgies of the night he hastes.
By solemn vows, and tender trust betray'd,
From perjur'd love, with bursting grief, depart,
His gold refusing, who recalls his heart!
Yet, 'mid the prospect dire of all that strows
The path of Woman with the sharpest woes,
O'er his deep crimes her darkest fears impend;
For their dread doom her bitterest tears descend!
Environ'd as she is by every ill,
To her heart's first impression faithful still,
Round his lov'd image yet resistless rise
Thrill'd recollections of their former joys;
Those pleading accents! that impassion'd sigh!
The shining ardours of that lucid eye,
Whose glance might thaw, with its enamour'd glow,
"On Dian's lap the consecrated snow!"
Smote by sore famine and the Winter's wind,
To keen reproach and taunting scorn consign'd,
And oft to her chill'd bosom pressing wild,
Pledge of his love, her little, helpless child,
Near the false youth she strays, unseen, unknown,
His fate more dreading, than she dreads her own.
While Love's deserter, Fashion's bubbled tool,
Compound abhorr'd of villain and of fool!
His hours in flatter'd ostentation wastes,
Ere to the orgies of the night he hastes.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "heart" and "impression" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
Text from The Poetical Works of Anna Seward; with Extracts from Her Literary Correspondence. ed. Walter Scott. 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for John Ballantyne and Co., 1810).
Date of Entry
05/16/2005
