"While in Fancy's ear / As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, / The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here, / Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, / Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear / Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!"
— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell
Date
1789
Metaphor
"While in Fancy's ear / As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, / The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here, / Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, / Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear / Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!"
Metaphor in Context
Sonnet XLV.
On Leaving Part of Sussex
Farewel Aruna!--on whose varied shore
My early vows were paid to Nature's shrine,
When thoughtless joy, and infant hope were mine,
And whose lorn stream has heard me since deplore
Too many sorrows! Sighing I resign
Thy solitary beauties--and no more
Or on thy rocks, or in thy woods recline,
Or on the heath, by moon-light lingering, pore
On air-drawn phantoms--While in Fancy's ear
As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell,
The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here,
Seems yet to strike his visionary shell,
Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear
Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!
On Leaving Part of Sussex
Farewel Aruna!--on whose varied shore
My early vows were paid to Nature's shrine,
When thoughtless joy, and infant hope were mine,
And whose lorn stream has heard me since deplore
Too many sorrows! Sighing I resign
Thy solitary beauties--and no more
Or on thy rocks, or in thy woods recline,
Or on the heath, by moon-light lingering, pore
On air-drawn phantoms--While in Fancy's ear
As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell,
The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here,
Seems yet to strike his visionary shell,
Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear
Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
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, By Charlotte Smith, 5th edition (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1789). <Link to Google Books>
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.
Elegiac Sonnets, By Charlotte Smith, 5th edition (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1789). <Link to Google Books>
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
