“ Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.
What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell. 125. Last Lines
No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life—that in me has rest,
As I—undying Life—have power in Thee! ”

“ Before the days of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen the woman writer was a lonely figure, however different may have been the ways in which various generations regarded her. One looks back through the centuries and sees these poetesses scattered about in ones and twos, fine ladies, quiet countrywomen with taste and education, blue stockings, [xiv] pet prodigies brought up in literary circles, stupid women vain of their accomplishments, timid women apologizing for their temerity; almost all of them inevitably and pathetically self-conscious about the opinion of the watching males around them. ”

“ The harmless Fable-writer do’s reply,
And all the rest of Helicon be dry?
And when so many choice productions swarm,
Must only Satire keep your fancies warm?
Whilst even there, you praise with such reserve,
As if you’d in the midst of plenty starve,
Tho’ ne’er so liberally we authors carve.
Happy the men, whom we divert with ease,
Whom Operas and Panegyrics please. 47. To Death
O King of Terrors, whose unbounded sway
All that have life, must certainly obey,
The King, the Priest, the Prophet, all are thine,
Nor wou’d ev’n God (in flesh) thy stroke decline. ”

“ But never had Orinda found
A soul till she found thine;
Which now inspires, cures and supplies,
And guides my darkned breast:
For thou art all that I can prize,
My joy, my life, my rest.
No bridegroom’s nor crown-conqueror’s mirth
To mine compar’d can be:
They have but pieces of the earth,
I’ve all the world in thee.
Then let our flames still light and shine,
And no false fear controul,
As innocent as our design,
Immortal as our soul.
[13]
14. A Revery
Death is a leveller ”

“ Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
[150]
142. Amor Mundi
‘Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing,
On the west wind blowing along this valley track?’
‘The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,
We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.’
So they two went together in glowing August weather,
The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on
The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight. ”

“ Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded.
Only one morning, and the day was clouded.
And one old age with all regrets is crowded.
Oh hush, oh hush! Thy tears my words are steeping.
Oh hush, hush, hush! So full, the fount of weeping?
Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping?
Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her.
Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter
That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her:
The one who now thy faded features guesses,
With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses,
With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses. 164. ”

“ Whatever does provoke our hate,
Our javelins strike, as sure as fate;
We bathe in springs, to cleanse the soil,
Contracted by our eager toil;
In which we shine like glittering beams
Or christal in the christal streams; [34]
Though Venus we transcend in form,
No wanton flames our bosomes warm!
If you ask where such wights do dwell,
In what bless’t clime, that so excel?
The poets onely that can tell. 35. Upon the Saying that My Verses were made by Another
Next heaven, my vows to thee, O sacred Muse! ”

“ I may echo the words of Dyce in his preface of 1827: ‘The inglorious toils of compilation seldom excite the gratitude of readers, who only require to be amused, and are indifferent as to what passed behind the scenes in the preparation of their entertainment: but we feel an honest satisfaction in the reflection, that our tedious chase through the Jungles of forgotten literature must procure to this undertaking the good-will of our countrywomen’. ”

“ Until the age of Joanna Baillie, the Matchless Orinda had the greatest repute of them all, but there is more substantial achievement in the work of Lady Winchilsea. The Countess had no fame in her lifetime, she did not (as Orinda did) correspond with the literary men or exchange tributes with the poets of her time. But it was not for nothing that Wordsworth ‘discovered’ and valued her. She kept her eye on Nature at a time when the world in general had a conventional parti pris about nature, and an impressive power comes with her speech. ”

“ To William Drummond of Hawthornden
I never rested on the Muses bed,
Nor dipt my quill in the Thessalian fountaine,
My rustick Muse was rudely fostered,
And flies too low to reach the double mountaine.
Then do not sparkes with your bright Suns compare,
Perfection in a Womans work is rare;
From an untroubled mind should verses flow ”

“ Morton may have supposed, when the Female Sex entirely escaped notice, or even ‘esteem’. But there was a time when it took no active share in literature. To-day we scarcely bother about the distinction between men and women writers. With thousands of women writing, with women’s verses in every magazine and women reporters in every newspaper office, when literary women congregate in clubs, and robust women novelists haggle with editors and discuss royalties with their male rivals, we take composition for granted as a feminine occupation. ”

“ There is nothing diffident about the attitude of Aphra Behn, the tough, audacious, fearless young widow who forced her way to dramatic success under the Restoration, and who was the first of our professional women writers. She has been rather unfairly treated by historians. It is true that her plays are as gross, in subject and speech, as any of her time: possibly her coarseness was the defect of the quality which enabled her to fight her lone hand in the Grub Street of the day. ”

“ One cannot but feel surprised that a lady of our peaceful age should be so thoroughly imbued with the martial spirit of our warlike [xi] ancestors. The fact proves not merely the strength of the human imagination, but also that the imagination is not sexual’. Of Mary Howitt he says that ‘As a versifier, as a moralist, and as a philosopher, she may safely challenge comparison with any writer of her own sex and with most of the writers of the other sex.... Mrs. Howitt is indeed a writer of whom England may be, and will be, eternally proud’. ”

“ Best of thy sex! if sacred friendship can
Dwell in the bosom of inconstant man,
As cold and clear as ice, as snow unstained,
With Love’s loose crimes unsullied, unprofaned,
Or you a woman with that name dare trust,
And think to friendship’s ties we can be just,
In a strict league together we’ll combine,
And [ ] friendship’s bright example shine. [29]
We will forget the difference of sex,
Nor shall the world’s rude censure us perplex
Think me all man: my soul is masculine,
And capable of as great things as thine. ”

“ And on the failure of my life reflect: [38]
Then from my self, to books, I turn my sight,
And there, with silent wonder and delight,
Gaze on th’ instructive venerable dead,
Those that in vertue’s school were early bred,
And since by rules of honour always led;
Who its strict laws with nicest care obey’d,
And were by calm unbyass’d reason sway’d:
Their great examples elevate my mind,
And I the force of all their precepts find;
By them inspir’d, above dull earth I soar,
And scorn those trifles which I priz’d before. 39. Song
Why, Damon, why, why, why so pressing? ”

“ From an untroubled mind should verses flow;
My discontents make mine too muddy show;
And hoarse encumbrances of household care,
Where these remain the Muses ne’er repair. But it did not, I think, occur to many early poetesses to apologize for writing or appeal for masculine mercy. Those who did write, of course, were mainly aristocrats, and whatever the standards of the rest of the population there has always been a good deal of democracy within the aristocracy, and an element of high culture amongst aristocratic women. ”

“ Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of immortality. [134]
With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou were left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is no room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou—Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed. ”

“ Fontenoy (1745) After the Battle: early dawn, Clare coast
‘Mary mother, shield us! Say, what men are ye,
Sweeping past so swiftly in this morning sea?’
‘Without sails or rowlocks merrily we glide
Home to Corca Bascuin on the brimming tide.’
‘Jesus save you, gentry! ”

“ And life and pleasure kindle in his eyes.
My fancy paints him now with ev’ry grace,
But ah! the dear resemblance mocks my fond embrace,
The flatt’ring vision takes its hasty flight,
And scenes of horror swim before my sight;
Grief and despair in all their terrors rise;
A dying lover pale and gasping lies. ”

“ On a Picture painted by Herself, representing Two Nymphs of Diana
We are Diana’s virgin train,
Descended of no mortal strain;
Our bows and arrows are our goods,
Our pallaces, the lofty woods,
The hills and dales, at early morn,
Resound and eccho with our horn;
We chase the hind and fallow deer,
The wolf and boar both dread our spear,
In swiftness we outstrip the wind,
An eye and thought we leave behind ”

“ I’ll only say as I have to such and before, that Plays have no great room for that which is men’s great advantage over women, that is Learning; we all know that the immortal Shakespeare’s Plays (who was not guilty of much more of this than often falls to women’s share) have better pleas’d the World than Johnson’s works, though by the way ’tis said the Benjamin was no such Rabbi neither, for I am inform’d that his Learning was but Grammar high (sufficient indeed to rob poor Salust of his best orations) ”

“ It might be possible to find some women writers of the age to whom Lord Molesworth’s strictures might be held, in part, to apply: Mrs. Centlivre, De la Rivière Manly, and Lady Mary Montagu. But it gives us a shock to hear them applied to the generality of early Georgian women, and they certainly would not apply to the poetesses (with whom we are specially concerned) of the rest of the [xxi] century. Most of them were extremely severe and models of propriety, proud to display what learning they really had, but studious to exhibit a decorous modesty about publication. ”

“ Even in the eighteenth century, one of Horace Walpole’s lady friends might not have apologized for writing verses as humbler contemporaries of his felt impelled to do. But after the Commonwealth we do commonly find apologies or protestations in text or preface.
The authorized folio of Katherine Philips (Orinda) is very enlightening. I have some doubts as to the literary modesty of Orinda: one sees behind her poems a bouncing [xv] gushing creature of the kind not usually content to hide their lights under bushels. But she protests enough. ”

“ The World did never but two Women know
Who, one by fraud, the other by wit did rise
To the two tops of Spiritual dignities;
One Female Pope of old, one Female Poet now. The panegyric was impressive; but it was all somewhat patronizing, addressed as though to a flying pig. There is an air of strain about Orinda’s nearest contemporary rival. The gifted Anne Killigrew, who, dying young, was the [xviii] subject of a great ode by Dryden, had to write a long poem protesting against the ‘saying that her verses were made by another’ ”

“ But there is a hearty straightforwardness about her which is lacking in some of the men of the Restoration, she had a gift for broad, strong characterization, she was honest, rough, kind, affectionate, not at all cynical, and she wrote English of an Elizabethan lustiness. She did not apologize, she counter-attacked. She was not allowed to forget her sex but she soundly thumped those who reminded her that her plays and poems were ‘writ by a woman’. ”

“ One or two small works (among which Mr. Dyce’s Specimens of British Poetesses is the only one of merit and research) have been devoted to the subject, it is true; but even the worthiest of these productions is at best but incomplete. It cannot surely be pretended that this neglect of our Female Poets is attributable to any lack of genius in the sex. In these enlightened days it may certainly be taken for granted that women have souls ... ”

“ Whose suffering’s sweet, if honour once adorn it;
Who slights revenge, yet does not fear, but scorn it;
Whose happiness in ev’ry fortune lives,
For that no fortune either takes or gives;
Who no unhandsome ways can bribe his fate,
Nay, out of prison marches through the gate; [15]
Who, losing all his titles and his pelf,
Nay, all the world, can never lose himself;
This person shines indeed, and he that can
Be vertuous is the great immortal man. 15. Orinda to Lucasia ”

“ Barbauld, Hannah More and Joanna Baillie—the last a poetess of really considerable talents—was becoming reconciled. For a time the Mrs. Radcliffes might prefer to sign their works whilst the Jane Austens remained anonymous; but with the end of the epoch the old air of peculiarity faded, and with the century of the Romantic Revival came an innumerable host of women writers of some distinction, and three poetesses with claims to rank [xxvii] with all but the greatest men. After Mrs. Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Emily Brontë we hear no more, and could hear no more, of ‘a Female Muse’. ”