Extracts from Hours of Solitude. A Collection of Original Poems. Volume II.
Dacre, Charlotte, b. 1782
Charlotte Payne, -- creation of electronic text.
Electronic edition 130Kb
Copyright (c) British Women Romantic Poets Project
Shields Library, University of California, Davis, California 95616
2000
I.D. No. DacrCHours2
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THE EVIL BEING.
OH! Thou whose breath empoisons the sweet air,
Whose heart is evil, and whose mind despair;
Whose baleful tongue the fairest fame can blight,
Whose deeds of horror shun the eye of light.
How cam'st thou, fiend, upon this earth to dwell?
Did thy perturbed spirit rise from hell?
Or from the close-ribb'd rock in tempest torn?
For thou of woman-kind wert never born!
Look in his aspect--shame ne'er made it glow;
Enthron'd sits crimson murder on his brow;
While ambush'd in his fierce demoniac eye,
Fraud, and the baser passions, scowling lie!
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GRIMALKIN'S GHOST;
OR,
THE WATER SPIRITS. In humble imitation of the soaring flights of some
legendary and exquisitely pathetic modern Bards.
JONAS lay on his bed, so my tale does relate,
And queer were the visions that roam'd in his pate,
When the clock on the staircase told one;
The door it flew wide, and a light fill'd the room;
Oh! mercy, what now is my horrible doom?
Thought Jonas--for speech he had none.
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He look'd thro' his fingers; and, strange to declare,
He saw such a sight as his senses did scare--
A Cat, with five kits in her train!
"Ah! monster!" she cried, 'twixt a scream and a mew,
"You thought you had drown'd us, but woe unto you,
Our spirits have risen again.
" We shall haunt you by day, we shall haunt you by night,
Behind and before, at your left and your right,
No comfort shall ever you know;
What harm had we done you? base monster, declare,
Tho' each had nine lives, you not any would spare,
But doom'd us to perish, oh! oh!
"Now vengeance is ours, lo! we wreak it on you;"
The five little kittens cried "Mew! mew! mew!"
And jump'd on poor Jonas's bed;
They rear'd on their hind legs, they danc'd on his breast,
With their cold, tender paws on his windpipe they press'd,
And play'd at bo-peep round his head.
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Of a sudden they ceas'd, he just ventur'd to peep,
But better for him had he still seem'd asleep,
For horrid the sight he beheld;
The angry mamma like a leopard was grown,
Her large sea-green eyes fiercely gleam'd on his own,
And her tail was enormously swell'd.
"Oh! monster," she scream'd, with a cattish despair,
"I am doom'd after death in your torments to share,
Or vengeance the fates will deny;
Round the brink of a well, such the sentence decreed,
After five spectre kittens you swiftly proceed,
Whilst I spit at your heels as you fly."
Page 63
THE HUNTER OF THE ALPS.
SEE where on Alpine heights the hunter keen
Follows the feather-footed chamois's flight,
Now on the brink of fearful abyss seen,
Now proudly gazing from the slippery height.
His fell pursuer, man, with anxious eye,
Follows resolv'd--his pointed spike in hand;
His haggard air seems with the scene to vie,
Nobly forlorn, and desolately grand.
Unceasing from the earliest streak of dawn,
O'er sheets of ice and dazzling snow he hies;
Now on the dizzy steep by magic borne,
Now o'er the precipice like light'ning flies.
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And oft, if night her sable plumes should spread
O'er toil unpaid--no lassitude he knows;
A fragment of the rock supports his head,
And deaf'ning torrents lull him to repose.
Too happy if at length his prize he gain,
The fleet chamois--whose wild, disdainful eye,
Whose graceful form, whose slender feet are vain--
The hunter's glory is to bid him die!
These are the strange delights of savage life!
Yet tender ties the mountain warrior knows,
A cottage, children, and a gentle wife!
For whom, while braving death, his bosom glows.
Yet such a life hath charms--its enterprise,
Its constant animation, and its care,
Gives birth to energy--bids hope arise,
And saves the soul from torpor and despair.
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SONG OF MELANCHOLY.
DARK as the wintry midnight is my soul; sad and tempestuous. Fain would I sit upon the stern brow'd rock, listening to the roaring of the terrible cataract.
Fool! to endure life, wandering, as I do, in the solitary path, while gloomy shadows stalk in the dim mist, and point at me with melancholy gesture.
I come, I come, gloomy shadows!--I hasten to be disembodied.
Bitter shrieks the North wind over the mountains; the night-bird screams dismal o'er the dark green yew. Oh! let me be laid in the grave, and let the spirits of the air bend over my tomb!
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I am unfit for the world; black misery pervades my brain; the desart of gloom suits my soul. The wild blast driving the heavy clouds over the mountains --the dreamy din of midnight chorus, oppressing the soul with deadly and mysterious sorrow, best befits me--the forgotten of Heaven!
Man is the monster from whose jaws I fly! whose poison'd arrow still festers in my heart, and defies the skill of the physician.
Spirit of death! bear me from the scene of my woe! all night will I watch for thee on the cold tomb-stone. Take pity, and receive me among ye--stretch forth from the slowly yawning tomb your slender arms, spirits of the quiet dead!
Oh! what have I done, that dreadful woe should haunt my footsteps? What have I done, that the phantom of despair should fly before me, shrieking and wringing her lurid hands?
Oh! let me die, that my sorrows may rest in tomb--that the voice of man may strike never more
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upon my maddened brain, and that the innocent smile of ***** may never mock the bursting of my sad heart.
God of Heaven! I beseech thee for death; stop, in pity, stop the feverish beating of my heart--let not my own hand urge the life away. Yet never can the tempest of my mind be quell'd--the stormy ocean may be easier to appease! I feel in my soul that happiness can never more return. Sad and strange are my nights; my days are a dim mist. Smile on me, oh! God! and send thy pale angel, Death, to bear me away in his arms.
Bitter shrieks the North wind over the mountains; the night-bird screams dismal from the dark green yew. Oh! let me be laid in the grave, and let the spirits of the air bend over my tomb!