Sonnet LXXXIV

By Anna Seward 1742–1809 Anna Seward

While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields,

Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,

November, dragging on this sunless day,

Lours, cold and sullen, on the watery fields;

And Nature to the waste dominion yields,

Stripped her last robes, with gold and purple gay —

So droops my life, of your soft beams despoiled,

Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smiled;

And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues

Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain

Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,

More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse

Than Winter’s grey, and desolate domain

Faded like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.

Biography

Born in Derbyshire, British Romantic poet and novelist Anna Seward was the daughter of a clergyman and the only one of four children to reach adulthood. Her close friend, Honora Sneyd, was adopted into the family and served as the muse for many of Seward’s poems. In 1750 her father was chosen as Canon of Lichfield Cathedral, and a few years later the family relocated to the Bishop’s Palace, where Seward lived for the rest of . . .

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