Analysis of Sonnet To Expression

Helen Maria Williams 1761 (London) – 1827



Expression, child of soul! I fondly trace
Thy strong enchantments, when the poet's lyre,
The painter's pencil catch thy sacred fire,
And beauty wakes for thee her touching grace-
But from this frighted glance thy form avert
When horrors check thy tear, thy struggling sigh,
When frenzy rolls in thy impassion'd eye,
Or guilt sits heavy on thy lab'ring heart-
Nor ever let my shudd'ring fancy bear
The wasting groan, or view the pallid look
Of him[A] the Muses lov'd-when hope forsook
His spirit, vainly to the Muses dear!
For charm'd with heav'nly song, this bleeding breast,
Mourns the blest power of verse could give despair no rest.-


Scheme ABCADEEFGHHIJJ
Poetic Form
Metre 0101111101 11110101 01010111010 0101110101 111111101 11011111001 1101010101 1111011111 110111101 0101110101 1101011101 1101010101 111111101 1011011110111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 631
Words 111
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 503
Words per stanza (avg) 108
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 08, 2023

35 sec read
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Helen Maria Williams

Helen Maria Williams was a British novelist poet and translator of French-language works A religious dissenter she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution she was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror but nonetheless spent much of the rest of her life in France A controversial figure in her own time the young Williams was favorably portrayed in a 1787 poem by William Wordsworth but she was portrayed by other writers as irresponsibly politically radical and even as sexually wanton more…

All Helen Maria Williams poems | Helen Maria Williams Books

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