Sonnet To Simplicity

Helen Maria Williams 1761 (London) – 1827



NYMPH of the desert! on this lonely shore,
Simplicity, thy blessings still are mine,
And all thou canst not give I pleas'd resign,
For all beside can soothe my soul no more.
I ask no lavish heaps to swell my store,
And purchase pleasures far remote from thine:
Ye joys, for which the race of Europe pine,
Ah, not for me your studied grandeur pour;
Let me where yon tall cliffs are rudely pil'd,
Where towers the Palm amidst the mountain trees,
Where pendant from the steep, with graces wild,
The blue Liana floats upon the breeze,
Still haunt those bold recesses, Nature's child,
Where thy majestic charms my spirit seize!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
44

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBACDCDCD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 617
Words 113
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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