Barbarina Brand

Barbarina Brand Poems

Barbarina Brand Biography

Brand (née Ogle), Barbarina, Lady Dacre (1768–1854) was an English poet, playwright, and translator. Barbarina was the daughter of Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle, 1st Baronet (d. 1816), and Hester (née Thomas). In 1789 she married Valentine Henry Wilmot, an officer in the guards, though they later separated. The couple had one daughter, Arabella (1796–1839). After Wilmot's death in 1819 she married Thomas Brand, 20th Baron Dacre (1774–1851), later that same year. Educated at home, she became "one of the most accomplished women of her time": in addition to her writing, she sculpted, rode, was proficient in both French and Italian, and maintained an extensive correspondence with a circle of other literary women, including Joanna Baillie, Mary Russell Mitford, and Catherine Maria Fanshawe. Her final years were marred by the death of her daughter Arabella Sullivan in 1839, and by the loss of her hearing)

The Best Poem Of Barbarina Brand

To My Aunt, With A Copy Of Gonzalvo Of Cordova

Although Time's heavy hand thy form may bow,
And leaving Earth's low cares, be fix'd on high
Thy graver thought, youth's every energy
Forgets not in thy boundless heart to glow:
Those orbs that Heaven's gay light no longer know,
Nor meet with kindred beam affection's eye,
(Long, long denied each grateful ministry),
Still own the tear that flows for others' woe;
Nor flows o'er sad reality alone:
Ev'n for the fabled ill the Muse portrays
The sacred drop upon thy cheek has shone.
Be thine the lay so graced, and so endeared!
Thou, as the sainted author of my days,
Alike from earliest years beloved, revered!

Hampton Court Palace, January 27th
, 1812.

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