Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton Poems

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton Biography

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton was a famous British society beauty, feminist, social reformer, and author of the early and mid nineteenth century.

Youth and Marriage

Caroline was born in London, England to Thomas Sheridan and Caroline Henrietta Callander. Her father was an actor, soldier, and colonial administrator, and the son of the prominent Irish playwright and Whig statesman Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Her mother was Scottish, the daughter of a landed gentleman, Col. Sir James Callander of Craigforth and Lady Elizabeth MacDonnell, the sister of an Irish peer, Lord Antrim. Mrs. Sheridan authored three short novels described by one her daughter's biographers as "rather stiff with the style of the eighteenth century, but none without a certain charm and wit..."

In 1817, ...

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton Comments

The Best Poem Of Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

My Heart Is Like A Withered Nut!

MY heart is like a withered nut,
Rattling within its hollow shell;
You cannot ope my breast, and put
Any thing fresh with it to dwell.
The hopes and dreams that filled it when
Life's spring of glory met my view,
Are gone! and ne'er with joy or pain
That shrunken heart shall swell anew.

My heart is like a withered nut;
Once it was soft to every touch,
But now 'tis stern and closely shut;--
I would not have to plead with such.
Each light-toned voice once cleared my brow,
Each gentle breeze once shook the tree
Where hung the sun-lit fruit, which now
Lies cold, and stiff, and sad, like me!

My heart is like a withered nut--
It once was comely to the view;
But since misfortune's blast hath cut,
It hath a dark and mournful hue.
The freshness of its verdant youth
Nought to that fruit can now restore;
And my poor heart, I feel in truth,
Nor sun, nor smile shall light it more!