"So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly, / Then fade:--and leave me, to despair and die!"
— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
J. Dodsley
Date
1786
Metaphor
"So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly, / Then fade:--and leave me, to despair and die!"
Metaphor in Context
Sonnet XXIII.
By the Same. To the North Star
To thy bright beams I turn my swimming eyes,
Fair, fav'rite planet! which in happier days
Saw my young hopes, ah! faithless hopes!--arise;
And on my passion shed propitious rays!
Now nightly wandering 'mid the tempests drear
That howl the woods, and rocky steeps among,
I love to see thy sudden light appear
Thro' the swift clouds--driv'n by the wind along:
Or in the turbid water, rude and dark,
O'er whose wild stream the gust of Winter raves,
Thy trembling light with pleasure still I mark,
Gleam in faint radiance on the foaming waves!
So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly,
Then fade:--and leave me, to despair and die!
By the Same. To the North Star
To thy bright beams I turn my swimming eyes,
Fair, fav'rite planet! which in happier days
Saw my young hopes, ah! faithless hopes!--arise;
And on my passion shed propitious rays!
Now nightly wandering 'mid the tempests drear
That howl the woods, and rocky steeps among,
I love to see thy sudden light appear
Thro' the swift clouds--driv'n by the wind along:
Or in the turbid water, rude and dark,
O'er whose wild stream the gust of Winter raves,
Thy trembling light with pleasure still I mark,
Gleam in faint radiance on the foaming waves!
So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly,
Then fade:--and leave me, to despair and die!
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 15 entries in the ESTC (1784, 1786, 1787, 1789, 1790, 1792, 1795, 1797, 1800).
Text drawn and corrected from OCR of 1789 edition in Google Books. Reading and comparing The Poems of Charlotte Smith, ed. Stuart Curran (New York and Oxford: OUP, 1993).
Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Essays. By Charlotte Smith of Bignor Park, In Sussex, 2nd edition (Chichester: Printed by Dennett Jaques, 1784). <Link to ECCO>
See also Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, by Charlotte Smith, 9th edition, 2 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, 1800). <Link to volume I in Google Books> <Link to volume II in ECCO> -- Note, Curran uses this edition as his base text for Sonnets 1 through 59.
Text drawn and corrected from OCR of 1789 edition in Google Books. Reading and comparing The Poems of Charlotte Smith, ed. Stuart Curran (New York and Oxford: OUP, 1993).
Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Essays. By Charlotte Smith of Bignor Park, In Sussex, 2nd edition (Chichester: Printed by Dennett Jaques, 1784). <Link to ECCO>
See also Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, by Charlotte Smith, 9th edition, 2 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, 1800). <Link to volume I in Google Books> <Link to volume II in ECCO> -- Note, Curran uses this edition as his base text for Sonnets 1 through 59.
Date of Entry
06/13/2013
