"Thou spectre of terrific mien, / Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye, / In whose fierce train each form is sees / That drives sick Reason to insanity!"
— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell
Date
1789
Metaphor
"Thou spectre of terrific mien, / Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye, / In whose fierce train each form is sees / That drives sick Reason to insanity!"
Metaphor in Context
Thou spectre of terrific mien,
Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye,
In whose fierce train each form is sees
That drives sick Reason to insanity!
I woo thee with unusual prayer,
"Grim visaged, comfortless Despair:"
Approach; in me a willing victim find,
Who seeks thine iron sway--and calls thee kind!
Ah! hide for ever from my sight
The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay,
Portrays some vision of delight,
Then bids the fairy tablet fade away;
While in dire contrast, to mine eyes
Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise,
And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower,
Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!
I bid the traitor Love, adieu!
Who to this fond, believing bosom came,
A guest insidious and untrue,
With Pity's soothing voice--in Friendship's name;
The wounds he gave, nor Time shall cure
Nor Reason teach me to endure.
And to that breast mild Patience pleads in vain,
Which feels the curse--of meriting it's pain.
(ll. 1-24, pp. 49-50)
Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye,
In whose fierce train each form is sees
That drives sick Reason to insanity!
I woo thee with unusual prayer,
"Grim visaged, comfortless Despair:"
Approach; in me a willing victim find,
Who seeks thine iron sway--and calls thee kind!
Ah! hide for ever from my sight
The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay,
Portrays some vision of delight,
Then bids the fairy tablet fade away;
While in dire contrast, to mine eyes
Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise,
And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower,
Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!
I bid the traitor Love, adieu!
Who to this fond, believing bosom came,
A guest insidious and untrue,
With Pity's soothing voice--in Friendship's name;
The wounds he gave, nor Time shall cure
Nor Reason teach me to endure.
And to that breast mild Patience pleads in vain,
Which feels the curse--of meriting it's pain.
(ll. 1-24, pp. 49-50)
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
