800 Years of Women's Letters

800 Years of Women's Letters by Olga Kenyon Read Free Book Online

Book: 800 Years of Women's Letters by Olga Kenyon Read Free Book Online
Authors: Olga Kenyon
Tags: 800 Years of Women’s Letters
only a few months before her death, she refers to herself as ‘Mira’ and recounts a dream which she contrasts to her kitchen work in ‘dusty walls’ with merely ‘sliding joys’.
    I include two extracts from verse epistles, because this form became fashionable in the Renaissance, when it was imported from Italy. It was popular among aristocrats able to make the Grand Tour through France and Italy. Women soon showed their proficiency at this demanding form, though they had to learn the skill on their own, unlike men. It is striking that Mary Leapor was able to master the demands of rhyming couplets at such a young, untutored age.
    1745
    Yet Mira dreams, as slumb’ring poets may,
    And rolls in treasures till the breaking day,
    While books and pictures in bright order rise,
    And painted parlours swim before her eyes:
    Till the shrill clock impertinently rings,
    And the soft visions move their shining wings:
    Then Mira wakes – her picures are no more,
    And through her fingers slides the vanished ore.
    Convinced too soon, her eye unwilling falls
    On the blue curtains and the dusty walls:
    She wakes, alas! to business and to woes,
    To sweep her kitchen, and to mend her clothes.
    But see pale Sickness with her languid eyes,
    At whose appearance all delusion flies:
    The world recedes, its vanities decline,
    Clorinda’s features seem as faint as mine:
    Gay robes no more the aching sight admires,
    Wit grates the ear, and melting music tires.
    Its wonted pleasures with each sense decay,
    Books please no more, and paintings fade away,
    The sliding joys in misty vapours end:
    Yet let me still, ah! let me grasp a friend:
    And when each joy, when each loved object flies,
    Be you the last that leaves my closing eyes.
    But how will this dismantled soul appear,
    When stripped of all it lately held so dear,
    Forced from its prison of expiring clay,
    Afraid and shiv’ring at the doubtful way?
    Yet did these eyes a dying parent see,
    Loosed from all cares except a thought for me,
    Without a tear resign her short’ning breath,
    And dauntless meet the ling’ring stroke of death.
    Then at th’ Almighty’s sentence shall I mourn,
    â€˜Of dust thou art, to dust shalt thou return’?
    Or shall I wish to stretch the line of fate,
    That the dull years may bear a longer date,
    To share the follies of succeeding times,
    With more vexations and with deeper crimes?
    Ah no – though heav’n brings near the final day,
    For such a life I will not, dare not pray:
    But let the tear for future mercy flow,
    And fall resigned beneath the mighty blow.
    EDS. D. SPENDER AND J. TODD, ANTHOLOGY OF BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS (1989)
‘VAIN REGRET’
    Apprehension about the reception of their writing has worried women from the time of Hildegard to today’s young novelists, such as Maggie Gee. Here, Charlotte Smith uses the verse epistle to bemoan the fate of her novel Emmeline , intended for print, then suppressed in 1782. Smith (1749–1806), a prolific poet and novelist, was forced to support her many children when her husband was imprisoned for debt. Her long Gothic novels were relatively successful, especially the first, Emmeline , finally published in 1788. She pleased the Romantic taste: ‘I wrote mournfully because I was unhappy .’
    1787
    O’erwhelm’d with sorrow, and sustaining long
    â€˜The proud man’s contumely, th’oppressor’s wrong,’
    Languid despondency, and vain regret,
    Must my exhausted spirit struggle yet?
    Yes! – Robb’d myself of all that fortune gave,
    Even of all hope – but shelter in the grave,
    Still shall the plaintive lyre essay its powers
    To dress the cave of Care with Fancy’s flowers,
    Maternal Love the fiend Despair withstand,
    Still animate the heart and guide the hand.
    â€“ May you, dear objects of my anxious care,
    Escape the evils I was born to bear!
    Round my devoted head while tempests roll,
    Yet

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