Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Characters [from Works]

London

Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green

1825

"One passion ruled despotic in her breast, / In every word, and look, and thought confest."

Of gentle manners, and of taste refined,
With all the graces of a polished mind;
Clear sense and truth still shone in all she spoke,
And from her lips no idle sentence broke.
Each nicer elegance of art she knew;
Correctly fair, and regularly true.
Her ready fingers plied with equal skill
The pencil's task, the needle, or the quill;
So poised her feelings, so composed her soul,
So subject all to reason's calm controul,--
One only passion, strong and unconfined,
Disturbed the balance of her even mind:
One passion ruled despotic in her breast,
In every word, and look, and thought confest:--
But that was love; and love delights to bless
The generous transports of a fond excess.
(ll. ??)

Government::Rule and Subjection::Rule of Passion

HDIS (Poetry)

Some text drawn from The Works of Anna Lætitia Barbauld. With a Memoir by Lucy Aikin (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Browne, and Green, 1825).

Reading McCarthy, William and Kraft, Elizabeth, eds. Anna Letitia Barbauld: Selected Poetry and Prose (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002).

Ruling Passion

01/02/2004