Sonnet To Mrs. Siddons

Helen Maria Williams 1761 (London) – 1827



Siddons! the Muse, for many a joy refin'd,
Feelings which ever seem too swiftly fled-
For those delicious tears she loves to shed,
Around thy brow the wreath of praise would bind-
But can her feeble notes thy praise unfold?
Repeat the tones each changing passion gives,
Or mark where nature in thy action lives,
Where, in thy pause, she speaks a pang untold!
When fierce ambition steels thy daring breast,
When from thy frantic look our glance recedes;
Or oh, divine enthusiast! when opprest
By anxious love, that eye of softness pleads-
The sun-beam all can feel, but who can trace
The instant light, and catch the radiant grace!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
68

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBACDDCEFAFGG
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 625
Words 112
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

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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