Revolution and Romanticism

ANNA SEWARD

Llangollen Vale 1796

Mary Russell Mitford described Anna Seward as ‘all tinkling and tinsel - a sort of Dr Darwin in petticoats’. It was Erasmus Darwin who first encouraged Seward to write poetry, and whose influence is visible in her elaborate and sometimes tortuous style. She was supremely confident in her own taste and judgement, a confidence given expression as much in the handsome presentation of this volume as in its content. The title poem celebrates the two famous bluestocking ladies of Llangollen, Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, who renounced society and lived together in Welsh solitude for fifty years. There are also poems of a more intimate nature, including Eyam, a revisiting of the scenes of her childhhod. Her work stands at the end rather than at the beginning of a period; but it does not lack feeling, and it throws the nature of the new poetry of the 1790s into sharp relief.

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INVITATION TO A FRIEND
Since dark December shrouds the transient day,
And stormy winds are howling in their ire,
Why com’st not THOU, who always can’st inspire
The soul of cheerfulness, and best array
A sullen hour in smiles? O! haste to pay
The cordial visit sullen hours require!
Around the circling walls a glowing fire
Shines - but it vainly shines in this delay
To blend thy spirit’s warm Promethean light.
Come then, at Science, and at Friendship’s call,
Their vow’d disciple - come, for they invite;
The social Powers without thee languish all.
Come - that I may not hear the winds of night,
Nor count the heavy eve-drops as they fall.

(page 47)

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Poetry of the 1890s