Once

Augusta Davies Webster 1837 (Poole, Dorset) – 1894



I SET a lily long ago;
I watched it whiten in the sun;
I loved it well, I had but one.
Then summer-time was done,
The wind came and the rain,
My lily bent, lay low.
Only the night-time sees my pain—
Alas, my lily long ago!

I had a rose-tree born in May;
I watched it burgeon and grow red,
I breathed the perfume that it shed.
Then summer-time had sped,
The frost came with its sleep
My rose-tree died away.
Only the silence hears me weep—
Alas, lost rose-tree! lost, lost May!

The garden's lily blows once more;
The buried rose will wake and climb;
There is no thought of rain and rime
After, next summer-time.
But the heart's blooms are weak;
Once dead for ever o'er.
Not night, not silence knows me seek
My joy that waned and blooms no more.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
113

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBBCACA DEEEFDFD GHDHIXIG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 732
Words 146
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

Augusta Davies Webster

Augusta Webster born in Poole, Dorset as Julia Augusta Davies, was an English poet, dramatist, essayist, and translator. The daughter of Vice-admiral George Davies and Julia Hume, she spent her younger years on board the ship he was stationed, the Griper. She studied Greek at home, taking a particular interest in Greek drama, and went on to study at the Cambridge School of Art. She published her first volume of poetry in 1860 under the pen name Cecil Homes. In 1863, she married Thomas Webster, a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. They had a daughter, Augusta Georgiana, who married Reverend George Theobald Bourke, a younger son of the Joseph Bourke, 3rd Earl of Mayo. Much of Webster's writing explored the condition of women, and she was a strong advocate of women's right to vote, working for the London branch of the National Committee for Women's Suffrage. She was the first female writer to hold elective office, having been elected to the London School Board in 1879 and 1885. In 1885 she travelled to Italy in an attempt to improve her failing health. She died on 5 September 1894, aged 57. During her lifetime her writing was acclaimed and she was considered by some the successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. After her death, however, her reputation quickly declined. Since the mid-1990s she has gained increasing critical attention from scholars such as Isobel Armstrong, Angela Leighton, and Christine Sutphin. Her best-known poems include three long dramatic monologues spoken by women: A Castaway, Circe, and The Happiest Girl In The World, as well as a posthumously published sonnet-sequence, "Mother and Daughter". more…

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