Verses Written In An Alcove,At a time in history when female published writers were very rare, Anna Laetitia Barbauld stood out with her English Romantic style of writing poetry. She also produced a number of essays, including works on political subjects, and was a noted children’s author.
She was certainly outspoken, even into her late sixties, and she fell foul of literary society when she published a poem called Eighteen Hundred and Eleven which, at the time of the Napoleonic wars, was derided as unpatriotic. She basically saw England as a post-war ruin and she protested vehemently about the British involvement in the war. The reviews of this poem were so vicious that she decided to lay down her pen for the rest of her life.
Verses Written In An Alcove by Anna Laetitia Barbauld
NOW the moon-beam’s trembling lustre
Silvers o’er the dewy green,
And in soft and shadowy colours
Sweetly paints the checquer’d scene.Here between the opening branches
Streams a flood of soften’d light,
There the thick and twisted foliage
Spreads the browner gloom of night.There is sure the haunt of fairies,
In yon cool Alcove they play;
Care can never cross the threshold,
Care was only made for day.Far from hence be noisy clamour,
Sick disgust and anxious fear;
Pining grief and wasting anguish
Never keep their vigils here.Tell no tales of sheeted spectres,
Rising from the quiet tomb;
Fairer forms this cell shall visit,
Brighter visions gild the gloom.Choral songs and sprightly voices
Echo from her cell shall call;
Sweeter, sweeter than the murmur
Of the distant water fall.Every ruder gust of passion
Lull’d with music dies away,
Till within the charmed bosom
None but soft affections play:Soft, as when the evening breezes
Gently stir the poplar grove;
Brighter than the smile of summer,
Sweeter than the breath of love.Thee, th’ inchanted Muse shall follow,
LISSY! to the rustic cell,
And each careless note repeating
Tune them to her charming shell.
Not the Muse who wreath’d with laurel,
Solemn stalks with tragic gait,
And in clear and lofty vision
Sees the future births of fate;
Not the maid who crown’d with cypress
Sweeps along in scepter’d pall,
And in sad and solemn accents
Mourns the crested heroe’s fall;
But that other smiling sister,
With the blue and laughing eye,
Singing, in a lighter measure,
Strains of woodland harmony:
All unknown to fame or glory,
Easy, blith and debonair,
Crown’d with flowers, her careless tresses
Loosely floating on the air.
Then, when next the star of evening
Softly sheds the silent dew,
Let me in this rustic temple,
LISSY ! meet the Muse and you.
bNOW the moon-beam’s trembling lustre
Silvers o’er the dewy green,
And in soft and shadowy colours
Sweetly paints the checquer’d scene.Here between the opening branches
Streams a flood of soften’d light,
There the thick and twisted foliage
Spreads the browner gloom of night.There is sure the haunt of fairies,
In yon cool Alcove they play;
Care can never cross the threshold,
Care was only made for day.Far from hence be noisy clamour,
Sick disgust and anxious fear;
Pining grief and wasting anguish
Never keep their vigils here.Tell no tales of sheeted spectres,
Rising from the quiet tomb;
Fairer forms this cell shall visit,
Brighter visions gild the gloom.Choral songs and sprightly voices
Echo from her cell shall call;
Sweeter, sweeter than the murmur
Of the distant water fall.Every ruder gust of passion
Lull’d with music dies away,
Till within the charmed bosom
None but soft affections play:Soft, as when the evening breezes
Gently stir the poplar grove;
Brighter than the smile of summer,
Sweeter than the breath of love.Thee, th’ inchanted Muse shall follow,
LISSY! to the rustic cell,
And each careless note repeating
Tune them to her charming shell.
Not the Muse who wreath’d with laurel,
Solemn stalks with tragic gait,
And in clear and lofty vision
Sees the future births of fate;
Not the maid who crown’d with cypress
Sweeps along in scepter’d pall,
And in sad and solemn accents
Mourns the crested heroe’s fall;
But that other smiling sister,
With the blue and laughing eye,
Singing, in a lighter measure,
Strains of woodland harmony:
All unknown to fame or glory,
Easy, blith and debonair,
Crown’d with flowers, her careless tresses
Loosely floating on the air.
Then, when next the star of evening
Softly sheds the silent dew,
Let me in this rustic temple,
LISSY ! meet the Muse and you.
