Lines To Helen

Helen Maria Williams 1761 (London) – 1827



A NEW-BORN INFANT, 1821.

She lives-that first pulsation of the heart
Is life!-receive, dear babe, thy destin'd part;
Yet frail thy being as the op'ning rose
    When chill the rude wind blows.

But ah, be like the blossom of the vale,
Lov'd infant, shelter'd from the mountain gale;
On whose meek head descend no ruffling showers,
    Who lives the span of flowers.

And far from thee may sorrow's tempest bend,
Nor ever wasting pangs the bosom rend;
Calm be thy day of life, and o'er its bloom
    May evening mildly come!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
113

Quick analysis:

Scheme A BBCC DDEE XAXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 517
Words 94
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 1, 4, 4, 4

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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