Anna Seward
Anna Seward Poems
I write, Honora, on the sparkling sand!-
The envious waves forbid the trace to stay:
HONORA'S name again adorns the strand!
...
For one short week I leave, with anxious heart,
Source of my filial cares, the Full of Days,
Lur'd by the promise of Harmonic Art
...
THEE, STANLEY , thee, our gladden'd spirit hails,
Since Life's first good for us thy efforts gain,
Who, Habitants of Albion's inland vales,
...
Behold that tree in autumn's dim decay,
Stripped by the frequent chill and eddying wind;
Where yet some yellow lonely leaves we find
...
I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light,
Winter's pale dawn; and as warm fires illume,
And cheerful tapers shine around the room,
...
O THOU soft Hope, that once with lustre gay
Didst gild the hours of Love's delicious day!
What, though no more the lively joy remains,
...
WRITTEN ON RISING GROUND,
NEAR LICHFIELD.
The Evening shines in May's luxuriant pride,
And all the sunny hills at distance glow,
...
Yes, thou shalt smile again!--Time always heals,
In Youth, the wounds of sorrow.--O! survey
Yon now subsided Deep, thro' night a prey
To warring winds, and to their furious peals
...
Now, young-ey'd Spring, on gentle breezes borne,
'Mid the deep woodlands, hills, and vales, and bowers,
...
INVITATION TO A FRIEND.
Since dark December shrouds the transient day,
And stormy Winds are howling in their ire,
...
If he whose bosom with no transport swells
In vernal airs, and hours, commits the crime
Of sullenness to Nature; 'gainst the time,
...
Behold him now his genuine colours wear,
That specious false-one, by whose cruel wiles
I lost thy amity; saw thy dear smiles
...
RETURN, blest years!--when not the jocund Spring,
Luxuriant Summer, nor the amber hours
Calm Autumn gives, my heart invok'd to bring
...
AND THE
INHABITANTS OF ITS ENVIRONS.
PROUD of her ancient Race, Britannia shows
...
O thou, who turnest this impassioned leaf,
Where Anguish claims the sympathetic grief,
If no relentless prejudice can bind
...
When Life's realities the Soul perceives
Vain, dull, perchance corrosive, if she glows
With rising energy, and open throws
...
INGRATITUDE,- how deadly is thy smart,
Proceeding from the Form we fondly love!
How light, compar'd, all other sorrows prove!
...
While summer roses all their glory yield
To crown the votary of love and joy,
Misfortune's victim hails, with many a sigh,
Thee, scarlet Poppy of the pathless field,
...
Thou child of Night and Silence, balmy Sleep,
Shed thy soft poppies on my aching brow!
And charm to rest the thoughts of whence, or how
...
Anna Seward Biography
an English Romantic poet, often called the Swan of Lichfield. Seward was the elder daughter of Thomas Seward (1708-1790), prebendary of Lichfield and Salisbury, and author. Born at Eyam in Derbyshire, she passed nearly all her life in Lichfield, beginning at an early age to write poetry partly at the instigation of Erasmus Darwin. Author of Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional (1760), her verses include elegies and sonnets, and she also wrote a poetical novel, Louisa, of which five editions were published. Seward's writings, which include a large number of letters, have been called "commonplace". Horace Walpole said she had "no imagination, no novelty." She was praised, however, by Mary Scott. Between 1775 and 1781, Seward was a guest and participant at the much-mocked salon held by Anna Miller at Batheaston. However, it was here that Seward's talent was recognised and her work published in the annual volume of poems from the gatherings, a debt that Seward acknowledged in her Poem to the Memory of Lady Miller (1782). Sir Walter Scott edited Seward's Poetical Works in three volumes (Edinburgh, 1810). To these he prefixed a memoir of the author, adding extracts from her literary correspondence. He declined, however, to edit the bulk of her letters, and these were published in six volumes by A. Constable as Letters of Anna Seward 1784-1807 (Edinburgh, 1811). Seward also wrote Memoirs of the Life of Dr Darwin (1804 In an era when women had to tread carefully in society's orbit, Seward struck a middle ground. In her work, Seward could be alternately arch and teasing, as in her poem entitled Portrait of Miss Levett, on the subject of a Lichfield beauty later married to Rev. Richard Levett. A longtime friend of the Levett family of Lichfield, Seward noted in her Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin that three of the town's foremost citizens had been thrown from their carriages and had injured their knees in the same year. "No such misfortune," Seward wrote, "was previously remembered in that city, nor has it recurred through all the years which since elapsed." There is a plaque to Anna Seward (spelt "Anne", which is the spelling she used in her will) in Lichfield Cathedral.)
The Best Poem Of Anna Seward
Elegy
I write, Honora, on the sparkling sand!-
The envious waves forbid the trace to stay:
HONORA'S name again adorns the strand!
Again the waters bear their prize away!
So Nature wrote her charms upon thy face,
The cheek's light bloom, the lip's envermeil'd dye,
And every gay, and every witching grace,
That Youth's warm hours, and Beauty's stores supply.
But Time's stern tide, with cold Oblivion's wave
Shall soon dissolve each fair, each fading charm,
E'en Nature's self, so powerful, cannot save
Her own rich gifts from this o'erwhelming harm.
Love and the Muse can boast superior power,
Indelible the letters they shall frame;
They yield to no inevitable hour,
But will on lasting tablets write thy name.
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