"For of calamity so long the prey, / Imagination now has lost her powers, / Nor will her fairy loom again essay / To dress affliction in a robe of flowers."
— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell
Date
1789
Metaphor
"For of calamity so long the prey, / Imagination now has lost her powers, / Nor will her fairy loom again essay / To dress affliction in a robe of flowers."
Metaphor in Context
Sonnet XLVIII.
To Mrs. ****
No more my wearied soul attempts to stray
From sad reality and vain regret,
Nor courts enchanting fiction to allay
Sorrows that sense refuses to forget:
For of calamity so long the prey,
Imagination now has lost her powers,
Nor will her fairy loom again essay
To dress affliction in a robe of flowers.
But if no more the bowers of Fancy bloom
Let one superior scene attract my view,
Where heav'ns pure rays the sacred spot illume,
Let thy lov'd hand with palm and amaranth stew
The mournful path approaching to the tomb,
While Faith's consoling voice endears the friendly gloom.
To Mrs. ****
No more my wearied soul attempts to stray
From sad reality and vain regret,
Nor courts enchanting fiction to allay
Sorrows that sense refuses to forget:
For of calamity so long the prey,
Imagination now has lost her powers,
Nor will her fairy loom again essay
To dress affliction in a robe of flowers.
But if no more the bowers of Fancy bloom
Let one superior scene attract my view,
Where heav'ns pure rays the sacred spot illume,
Let thy lov'd hand with palm and amaranth stew
The mournful path approaching to the tomb,
While Faith's consoling voice endears the friendly gloom.
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
