Anthologies

Victorian Women Poets

An Anthology

Edited by Angela Leighton & Margaret Reynolds

Oxford UK & Cambridge USA: Blackwell, 1995

List of Poets

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

I Margaret Reynolds

II Angela Leighton

Note on the text

FELICIA HEMANS (1793-1835)

The Last Song of Sappho

Corinne at the Capitol

To a Wandering Female Singer

Woman and Fame

Properzia Rossi

The Grave of a Poetess

Evening Prayer, at a Girls' School

The Image in Lava

Casabianca

Song of Emigration

The Chamois Hunter's Love

The Stranger's Heart

A Parting Song

MARY HOWITT (1799-1888)

The Dying Child

The Cry of the Animals

MARIA JANE JEWSBURY (1800-1833)

To My Own Heart

A Farewell to the Muse

A Summer Eve's Vision

Verses

'My heart's in the kitchen, my heart is not here'

CAROLINE CLIVE ( V') (1801-1873)

The Mother

Old Age

L.E.L. (LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON) (1802-1838)

from The Improvisatrice

Sappho's Song

Stanzas on the Death of Mrs. Hemans

A History of the Lyre

A Girl at Her Devotions

The Dying Child

from Fragments

Secrets

Small Miseries

The Marriage Vow

Gifts Misused

The Poor

Stern Truth

The Mask of Gaiety

The Power of Words

The Farewell

Song: 'Farewell! - and never think of me'

SARA COLERIDGE (1802-1852)

'"Father! no amaranths e'er shall wreathe my brow"'

'Blest is the tarn which towering cliffs o'ershade'

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806-1861)

Felicia Hemans

L.E.L.'s Last Question

The Romance of the Swan's Nest

Grief

To George Sand: A Desire

To George Sand: A Recognition

The Cry of the Children

The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point

Flush or Faunus

The Mask

from Sonnets from the Portuguese

'Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor' IV

'I lift my heavy heart up solemnly' V

'And wilt thou have me fashion into speech' XIII

'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways' XLIII

from Casa Guidi Windows

Part One (ll. 1-48)

from Aurora Leigh

Book II (ll. 1-816)

Book VI (ll. 419-694)

from A Curse for a Nation

Lord Walter's Wife

My Heart and I

The Best Thing in the World

A Musical Instrument

Mother and Poet

HELEN DUFFERIN (1807-1867)

The Charming Woman

The Mother's Lament

CAROLINE NORTON (1808-1877)

The Picture of Sappho

Obscurity of Woman's Worth

Sonnet VII: 'Like an enfranchised bird, who wildly springs'

from Marriage and Love

from A Voice from the Factories

FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (1809-1893)

To Mrs. Norton

Lines: On Reading with Difficulty Some of Schiller's Early Love Poems

Sonnet: 'If there were any power in human love'

Farewell to Italy

CHARLOTTE BRONTE (1816-1855)

Young Man's Naughty Adventure

The Lonely Lady

My Dreams

'Obscure and little seen my way'

'Is this my tomb, this humble stone'

The Orphan Child

'Like wolf - and black bull or goblin hound'

Pilate's Wife's Dream

Reason

On the Death of Emily Jane Bronte

On the Death of Anne Bronte

ISA BLAGDEN (1816?-1873)

To George Sand on her Interview with Elizabeth Barrett Browning

FRANCES BROWN(E) (1816-1879)

from The Australian Emigrant

ELIZA COOK (1817-1889)

The Old Arm-Chair

Song of the Rushlight

The Idiot-Born

' 'Tis Well to Wake the Theme of Love'

On Seeing a Bird-Catcher

Song of the Imprisoned Bird

The Surgeon's Knife

To My Lyre

Song of the Modern Time

Song of the Ugly Maiden

To Charlotte Cushman

A Song for the Workers

'Our Father'

Lines: Suggested by the Song of a Nightingale

To the Late William Jerdan

The Mouse and the Cake

EMILY JANE BRONTE (1818-1848)

R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida

'The night is darkening round me'

'Why do I hate that lone green dell?'

'The linnet in the rocky dells'

'Loud without the wind was roaring'

'A little while, a little while'

'Shall Earth no more inspire thee'

'In summer's mellow midnight'

'Riches I hold in light esteem'

'Aye there it is! It wakes tonight'

'If grief for grief can touch thee'

'"Well, some may hate and some may scorn"'

My Comforter

To Imagination

'O! thy bright eyes must answer now'

'Ah! why, because the dazzling sun'

'No coward soul is mine'

'Stanzas': 'Often rebuked, yet always back returning'

HENRIETTA TINDAL (1818-1879)

The Cry of the Oppressed

The Birth Wail

CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER (1818-1895)

'All things bright and beauteous'

GEORGE ELIOT (MARY ANN EVANS) (1819-1880)

Brother and Sister (Sonnets)

from Armgart

Scene II

Scene V

ANNE BRONTE (1820-1849)

A Fragment

'My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring'

The Captive Dove

Home

Night

MENELLA BUTE SMEDLEY (1820-1877)

A Face from the Past

The Irish Fairy

The Sorrowful Sea-Gull

A Contrast

Cavour

JEAN INGELOW (1820-1897)

Divided

from Mopsa the Fairy

Winding-up Time

A Story

'Little babe, while burns the west'

DORA GREENWELL (1821-1882)

Christina

The Broken Chain

To Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in 1851

To Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in 1861

Demeter and Cora

The Sun-Flower

Fidelity Rewarded

To Christina Rossetti

JANE FRANCESCA WILDE (SPERANZA) (1821-1896)

Who Will Show Us Any Good?

Corinne's Last Love-Song

The Poet's Destiny

Desillusion

ELIZA OGILVY (1822-1912)

A Natal Address to My Child, March 19th 1844

Newly Dead and Newly Born

Grannie's Birthday

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER (1825-1864)

A Woman's Question

My Journal

A Legend of Provence

A Lost Chord

A Woman's Answer

A Woman's Last Word

Three Evenings in a Life

Philip and Mildred

Homeless

Envy

EMILY PFEIFFER (1827-1890)

from From Out of the Night

Any Husband to Many a Wife

'Peace to the Odalisque, the facile slave'

The Lost Light

ELIZABETH SIDDAL (1829-1862)

The Lust of the Eyes

At Last

BESSIE RAYNER PARKES (1829-1925)

For Adelaide

To an Author who Loved Truth More than Fame

To Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from Summer Sketches

Lilian's Second Letter

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI (1830-1894)

Sappho

Song: 'When I am dead, my dearest'

Three Stages

Remember

A Pause

A Study (A Soul)

Echo

My Dream

Cobwebs

A Chilly Night

A Bed of Forget-me-nots

In an Artist's Studio

Introspective

'Reflection'

A Birthday

Winter: My Secret

A Better Resurrection

'The heart knoweth its own bitterness'

Autumn

At Home

The Convent Threshold

L.E.L.

Goblin Market

Cousin Kate

Noble Sisters

On the Wing

Twice

Under Willows

A Sketch

From Sunset to Star Rise

'Italia, Io Ti Saluto!'

A Christmas Carol

from Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book

'Why did baby die'

'If a pig wore a wig'

'A pin has a head, but has no hair'

'Hopping frog, hop here and be seen'

'When fishes set umbrellas up'

'The peacock has a score of eyes'

'Who has seen the wind?'

'Baby lies so fast asleep'

'A handy Mole who plied no shovel'

from Later Life

Sonnet 26: 'This Life is full of numbness and of balk'

Soeur Louise de la Misericorde (1674)

An Old-World Thicket

ELLEN JOHNSTON (1835-1873)

A Mother's Love

Lines: To a Young Gentleman of Surpassing Beauty

The Working Man

Nelly's Lament for the Pirnhouse Cat

Lines to Ellen, the Factory Girl

An Address to Nature on its Cruelty

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL (1836-1879)

Just When Thou Wilt

Enigma No. 6

AUGUSTA WESTER (1837-1894)

By the Looking-Glass

Faded

Circe

A Castaway

Sonnets from Mother and Daughter

VIII 'A little child she, half defiant came'

XI Love's Mourner

XV 'That some day Death who has us all for jest'

XX 'There's one I miss. A little questioning maid'

XXVII 'Since first my little one lay on my breast'

HARRIET HAMILTON KING (1840-1920)

A Dream Maiden

A Moonlight Ride

Summer Lost

MATHILDE BLIND (1841-1896)

The Russian Student's Tale

A Fantasy

Entangled

The Beautiful Beeshareen Boy

On a Forsaken Lark's Nest

from The Ascent of Man

Chaunts of Life

The Leading of Sorrow

'VIOLET FANE' (1843-1905)

In an Irish Churchyard

The Siren

CAROLINE LINDSAY (1844-1912)

Love or Fame

To My Own Face

L. S. BEVINGTON (1845-1895)

'Egoisme a Deux'

Measurements

One More Bruised Heart!

'Dreamers?'

In Memoriam

EMILY HICKEY (1845-1924)

'For Richer, For Poorer'

from Michael Villiers, Idealist

Book V

MICHAEL FIELD (KATHERINE BRADLEY, 1846-1914 AND EDITH COOPER, 1862-1913)

'Maids, not to you my mind doth change'

'Come, Gorgo, put the rug in place'

A Portrait

'O Wind, thou hast thy kingdom in the trees'

'Ah, Eros doth not always smite'

'Sometimes I do despatch my heart'

'So jealous of your beauty'

'Love rises up some days'

'Already to mine eyelids' shore'

'A Girl'

'I sing thee with the stock-dove's throat'

Unbosoming

'It was deep April'

'As two fair vessels side by side'

Cyclamens

A Flaw

Penetration

To the Winter Aphrodite

Embalmment

After Soufriere

Fifty Quatrains

Nests in Elms

'I love you with my life'

The Mummy Invokes his Soul

Sullenness

Leaves

Ebbtide at Sundown

Life Plastic

Eros

Elsewhere

Nightfall

Constancy

Sweet-Briar in Rose

Your Rose is Dead

A Palimpsest

Trinity

The Goad

To Christina Rossetti

'Beloved, my glory in thee is not ceased'

'She is singing to thee, Domine!'

'Loved, on a sudden thou didst come to me'

An Almoner

A Picture

'Lo, my loved is dying'

They Shall Look on Him

Fellowship

ALICE MEYNELL (1847-1922)

To the Beloved

A Letter from a Girl to her own Old Age

To a Daisy

A Study

Before Light

About Noon

At Twilight

Renouncement

Parentage

Cradle-Song at Twilight

The Modern Mother

The Watershed

Maternity

Christ in the Universe

A Father of Women

To Silence

The Girl on the Land

MAY PROBYN (dates unknown)

The Model

'As the Flower of the Grass'

Barcarolle

Ballade of Lovers

Blossom

Anniversaries

The End of the Journey

A Song Out of Season

Changes

'More than They that Watch for the Morning'

Rondelet: '"Which way he went?"'

Rondelet: 'Say what you please'

Triolets

Tete-a-Tete

China Maniacs

I Before

II After

Love in Mayfair

Masquerading

Frustrated

Lai

Kyrielle

A. MARY F. ROBINSON (1857-1944)

Venetian Nocturne

Stornelli and Strambotti

An Oasis

A Search for Apollo

Tuscan Olives

Love, Death, and Art

Song: 'Oh for the wings of a dove'

The Dead Friend

Celia's Home-Coming

To My Muse

Darwinism

The Valley

Unum est Necessarium

Art and Life

The Sibyl

The Idea

Personality

The Scape-Goat

The Wise-Woman

Posies

Pallor

CONSTANCE NADAN (1858-1889)

The Sister of Mercy

The Pantheist's Song of Immortality

Love Versus Learning

Moonlight and Gas

The Two Artists

Love's Mirror

Scientific Wooing

Natural Selection

Solomon Redivivus, 1886

The Pessimist's Vision

Poet and Botanist

E. NESBIT (1858-1924)

Song: 'Oh, baby, baby, baby dear'

The Husband of To-Day

The Wife of All Ages

Vies Manquees

The Goose-Girl

Haunted

The Things That Matter

The Dead to the Living

A Great Industrial Centre

ROSAMUND MARRIOTT WATSON ('GRAHAM R. THOMSON') (1860-1911)

Nirvana

Ballad of the Bird-Bride

A Ballad of the Were-Wolf

The White Bird

Children of the Mist

The White Lady

The Cage

AMY LEVY (1861-1889)

Xantippe

A Minor Poet

Magdalen

A Cross-Road Epitaph

Epitaph (On a Commonplace Person who Died in Bed)

A March Day in London

Straw in the Street

A Reminiscence

The Sequel to 'A Reminiscence'

Twilight

The Old House

Felo de Se

To Vernon Lee

A Ballad of Religion and Marriage

MARY E. COLERIDGE (1861-1907)

The Other Side of a Mirror

A Clever Woman

Impromptu

Solo

'I envy not the dead that rest'

Gone

'True to myself am I, and false to all'

Mortal Combat

Friends - With a Difference

Master and Guest

Gifts

The Witch

The Contents of an Ink-bottle

L'Oiseau Bleu

In London Town

The Witches' Wood

An Insincere Wish Addressed to a Beggar

A Day-dream

Unwelcome

Wilderspin

The Lady of Trees

Broken Friendship

Shadow

The White Women

Marriage

'"But in that Sleep of Death what Dreams may Come?"'

'The fire, the lamp, and I, were alone together'

'Only a little shall we speak of thee'

MAY KENDALL (1861-c.1931)

A Fossil

Legend of the Crossing-Sweeper

Lay of the Trilobite

Woman's Future

Underground

A Pure Hypothesis

Education's Martyr

The Philanthropist and the Jelly-fish

The Vision of Noah

The Lower Life

Failure

DORA SIGERSON (1866-1918)

The Skeleton in the Cupboard