The Soldier's Wife.

DACTYLICS.

Weary way-wanderer languid and sick at heart
Travelling painfully over the rugged road,
Wild-visag'd Wanderer! ah for thy heavy chance!

Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed,
Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back
Meagre and livid and screaming its wretchedness.

[1] Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony,
As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe,
Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy hagged face.

Thy husband will never return from the war again,
Cold is thy hopeless heart even as Charity--
Cold are thy famish'd babes--God help thee, widow'd One!

Robert Southey

Robert Southey was an English poet, biographer, essayist, and historian. Born on August 12, 1774, he was associated with the Romantic school of poetry and is well known for his works such as 'The Story of the Three Bears', which is the origin of the famous Goldilocks tale. He served as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1813 until his death in 1843. His prolific output included not just poetry, but also significant biographical and historical works.

Robert Southey

To The Chapel Bell.

Robert Southey, Simple Poetry

Sonnet III.

Robert Southey, Simple Poetry

Inscription IV. For the Apartment in CHEPSTOW-CASTLE where HENRY MARTEN the Regicide was imprisoned Thirty Years.

Robert Southey, Simple Poetry

Eclogue VI. The Ruined Cottage.

Robert Southey, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Widow.

SAPPHICs.

Cold was the night wind, drifting fast the snows fell,
Wide were the downs and shelterless and naked,
When a poor Wanderer struggled on her journey
        Weary and way-sore.

Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflexions;
Cold was the night wind, colder was her bosom!
She had no home, the world was all before her,
        She had no shelter.

Fast o'er the bleak heath rattling drove a chariot,
"Pity me!" feebly cried the poor night wanderer.
"Pity me Strangers! lest with cold and hunger
        Here I should perish.

"Once I had friends,--but they have all forsook me!
"Once I had parents,--they are now in Heaven!
"I had a home once--I had once a husband--
        "Pity me Strangers!

"I had a home once--I had once ...

Robert Southey

Eclogue IV. The Sailor's Mother.

WOMAN.
        Sir for the love of God some small relief
        To a poor woman!


TRAVELLER.
        Whither are you bound?
        'Tis a late hour to travel o'er these downs,
        No house for miles around us, and the way
        Dreary and wild. The evening wind already
        Makes one's teeth chatter, and the very Sun,
        Setting so pale behind those thin white clouds,
        Looks cold. 'Twill be a bitter night!


WOMAN.
        Aye Sir
        'Tis cutting keen! I smart at every breath,
        Heaven knows how I shall reach my journey's end,
        For the way is long before me, and my feet,
        God help me! sore with travelling. I would gladly,
        If it pleased God, lie down at once and die.

Robert Southey

Eclogue III. The Funeral.

    The coffin [1] as I past across the lane
    Came sudden on my view. It was not here,
    A sight of every day, as in the streets
    Of the great city, and we paus'd and ask'd
    Who to the grave was going. It was one,
    A village girl, they told us, who had borne
    An eighteen months strange illness, and had pined
    With such slow wasting that the hour of death
    Came welcome to her. We pursued our way
    To the house of mirth, and with that idle talk
    That passes o'er the mind and is forgot,
    We wore away the time. But it was eve
    When homewardly I went, and in the air
    Was that cool freshness, that discolouring shade
    That makes the eye turn inward. Then I heard
    Over the vale the heavy toll of death
    Sound slow; it made ...

Robert Southey

The Pauper's Funeral

What! and not one to heave the pious sigh!
Not one whose sorrow-swoln and aching eye
For social scenes, for life's endearments fled,
Shall drop a tear and dwell upon the dead!
Poor wretched Outcast! I will weep for thee,
And sorrow for forlorn humanity.
Yes I will weep, but not that thou art come
To the stern Sabbath of the silent tomb:
For squalid Want, and the black scorpion Care,
Heart-withering fiends! shall never enter there.
I sorrow for the ills thy life has known
As thro' the world's long pilgrimage, alone,
Haunted by Poverty and woe-begone,
Unloved, unfriended, thou didst journey on:
Thy youth in ignorance and labour past,
And thine old age all barrenness and blast!
Hard was thy Fate, which, while it doom'd to woe,
Denied thee wisdom to support t...

Robert Southey

The Emigrant Mother

Once in a lonely hamlet I sojourned
In which a Lady driven from France did dwell;
The big and lesser griefs with which she mourned,
In friendship she to me would often tell.
This Lady, dwelling upon British ground,
Where she was childless, daily would repair
To a poor neighbouring cottage; as I found,
For sake of a young Child whose home was there.

Once having seen her clasp with fond embrace
This Child, I chanted to myself a lay,
Endeavouring, in our English tongue, to trace
Such things as she unto the Babe might say:
And thus, from what I heard and knew, or guessed,
My song the workings of her heart expressed.

I

"Dear Babe, thou daughter of another,
One moment let me be thy mother!
An infant's face and looks are thine,
And sure a ...

William Wordsworth

Eclogue VI. The Ruined Cottage.

    Aye Charles! I knew that this would fix thine eye,
    This woodbine wreathing round the broken porch,
    Its leaves just withering, yet one autumn flower
    Still fresh and fragrant; and yon holly-hock
    That thro' the creeping weeds and nettles tall
    Peers taller, and uplifts its column'd stem
    Bright with the broad rose-blossoms. I have seen
    Many a fallen convent reverend in decay,
    And many a time have trod the castle courts
    And grass-green halls, yet never did they strike
    Home to the heart such melancholy thoughts
    As this poor cottage. Look, its little hatch
    Fleeced with that grey and wintry moss; the roof
    Part mouldered in, the rest o'ergrown with weeds,
    House-leek and long thin grass and greener moss;
    So Natur...

Robert Southey