Poem by Charlotte Turner Smith

Sonnet 70. On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic

Is there a solitary wretch who hies
  To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
  Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
  Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half-utter'd lamentation, lies
  Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
  I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink
  From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.

1. Sonnet 85. The Fairest Flowers Are Gone! For Tempests Fell
2. Sonnet 33. To the Naiad of the Arun
3. Sonnet 8. To Spring
4. Sonnet 75. Where the Wild Woods and Pathless Forests Frown
5. Sonnet 16. From Petrarch (YE vales and woods! fair scenes of happier hours!)

Print

1551 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version