Mary Alcock

Mary Alcock Poems

Mary Alcock Biography

Mary Alcock [née Cumberland] (ca. 1742–1798), was a poet, essayist, and philanthropist. Mary was the youngest child of Joanna Bentley (1704/5–1775) and Bishop Denison Cumberland (1705/6–1774). Richard Bentley, classicist and master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was her maternal grandfather, and Richard Cumberland (1732–1811), playwright, was her brother. She spent her childhood in Stanwick, Northamptonshire, and Fulham. In 1762 the family relocated to the Kingdom of Ireland when Denison Cumberland's father was appointed chaplain to George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. It was there that she married, in or around 1770, though the identity of Alcock, her husband, has not been satisfactorily established. Her husband's mental health would seem to have been fragile and the marriage was likely unhappy. She nursed her parents through long illnesses until their deaths and cared for her seven nieces after the death of her sister Elizabeth Hughes in 1770. A widow by the early 1780s, she moved to Bath, Somerset, where she was part of the literary circle of Lady Anne Miller (1741–1781). She engaged in various charitable activities. Never robust, she died at the age of fifty-seven in Northamptonshire. Her niece Joanna Hughes edited her collected works after her death: some 183 pages of poems and essays. The collection received little critical interest though subscribers included Charles Burney, Elizabeth Carter, William Cowper, Hannah More, and various members of royalty.)

The Best Poem Of Mary Alcock

The Chimney-Sweeper's Complaint

A chimney-sweeper's boy am I:
Pity my wretched fate!
Ah, turn your eyes; 'twoud draw a tear,
Knew you my helpless state.

Far from my home, no parents I
Am ever doomed to see;
My master, should I sue to him,
He'd flog the skin from me.

Ah, dearest madam, dearest sir,
Have pity on my youth;
Though black, and covered o'er with rags,
I tell you naught but truth.

My feeble limbs, benumbed with cold,
Totter beneath the sack,
Which ere the morning dawn appears
Is loaded on my back.

My legs you see are burnt and bruised,
My feet are galled by stones,
My flesh for lack of food is gone,
I'm little else but bones.

Yet still my master makes me work,
Not spares me day or night;
His 'prentice boy he says I am,
And he will have his right.

'Up to the highest top', he cries,
'There all out _chimney-sweep_!'
With panting heart and weeping eyes,
Trembling I upwards creep.

But stop! no more -- I see him come;
Kind sir, remember me!
Oh, could I hide me underground,
How thankful should I be!

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