Anthologies

POETRY BY ENGLISH WOMEN

ELIZABETHAN TO VICTORIAN

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by R. E. Pritchard

New York: Continuum, 1993

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Further Reading

QUEEN ELIZABETH I (1533-1603)

Written with a Diamond on her Window at Woodstock

Written on a Wall at Woodstock

Written in her French Psalter

The Doubt of Future Foes

On Monsieur's Departure

ISABELLA WHITNEY (fl. 1567)

from The Admonition by the Auctor

Wyll and Testament

LADY MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561-1621)

Psalm 57: Miserere Mei, Deus

Psalm 58: Si Vere Utique

Psalm 92: Bonum Est Confiteri

Psalm 139: Domine, Probasti

EMILIA LANYER (1569-1645)

The Description of Cooke-ham

LADY MARY WROTH (1587?-1652?)

Sonnets from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

from The Countess of Montgomery's Urania

ANNE BRADSTREET (1613?-1672)

The Prologue

To my Dear and loving Husband

Before the Birth of one of her Children

A letter to her Husband

Upon the Burning of our House

AN COLLINS (fl. 1653?)

Song

Another Song

MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE (1624?-1674)

An Excuse for so much writ upon my Verses

A Poet I am neither born, nor bred'

Of the Theam of Love

Natures Cook

A Dissert

Soule, and Body

A Woman drest by Age

Of the Animal Spirits

A Dialogue betwixt the Body and the Mind

from The Fort or Castle of Hope

A Discourse of Beasts

KATHERINE PHILIPS (1631-1664)

Friendship's Mystery

To my Excellent Lucasia

An Anser to another persuading a Lady to marriage

To the Queen of Inconstancy

Epitaph on her Son H.P.

Lucasia, Rosania and Orinda parting at a Fountain

APHRA BEHN (1640-1689)

Love Arm'd

Song: The Willing Mistriss

The Disappointment

To Alexis

To the fair Clarinda

MARY LADY CHUDLEIGH (1656-1710)

from The Ladies Defence

To the Ladies

'EPHELIA' (fl. 1679?)

On a Bashful Shepherd

To One that asked me why I loved J.G.

Maidenhead

To a Proud Beauty

In the Person of a Lady, to Bajazet

ANNE KILLIGREW (1660-1685)

On a picture painted by herself

On Death

Upon the saying that my verses were made by another

ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA (1661-1720)

The Introduction

A Letter to Daphnis

from The Spleen

The Unequal Fetters

A Nocturnal Reverie

SARAH FYGE EGERTON (1669-1723)

from The Female Advocate

The Liberty

The Emulation

ELIZABETH SINGER ROWE (1674-1737)

To Celinda

The Expostulation

from To one that persuades me to leave the Muses

To Orestes

from A Paraphrase of the Canticles

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1689-1762)

from Six Town Eclogues

The Lover

A Receipt to Cure the Vapours

Between your sheets'

MARY COLLIER (1690?-after 1762)

The Womans Labour

LAETITIA PILKINGTON (1712?-1750)

The Wish

Dol and Roger

A Song

A Song

Fair and Softly goes far

MARY LEAPOR (1722-1746)

from Essay on Friendship

from The Head-ache

The Sacrifice

On Winter

Mira's Will

MARY JONES (d.1778)

from An Epistle to Lady Bowyer

After the Small Pox

Soliloquy on an empty Purse

ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD (1743-1825)

On a Lady's Writing

Tomorrow

Washing-Day

The Rights of Woman

ANNA SEWARD (1742-1809)

Verses inviting Mrs C-- to Tea

from Colebrook Dale

Invocation, To the Genius of Slumber

HANNAH MORE (1745-1833)

from The Bas Bleu

The Riot

CHARLOTTE SMITH (1749-1806)

Written at the Churchyard at Middleton

On the Aphorism: L'Amiti‚ est l'amour sans ailes'

from Beachy Head

Thirty-Eight

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH (1771-1855)

Grasmere-a Fragment

Floating Island at Hawkshead

Thoughts on my sick-bed

JANE TAYLOR (1783-1824)

Recreation

The Squire's Pew

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS (1793-1835)

The Homes of England

The Indian Woman's Death Song

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806-1861)

from Sonnets from the Portuguese

To George Sand

from Casa Guidi Windows

from Aurora Leigh

A Musical Instrument

CHARLOTTE BRONTE (1816-1855)

'Again I find myself alone'

What does she dream of'

Diving

from Retrospection

EMILY BRONTE (1818-1848)

'High waving heather'

Plead for Me

Remembrance

'No coward soul is mine'

Stanzas

ANNE BRONTE (1820-1849)

Song

JEAN INGELOW (1820-1897)

from Divided

The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571

DORA GREENWELL (1821-1882)

A Scherzo

The Sunflower

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830-1894)

Remember

The World

From the Antique

Echo

In an Artist's Studio

A Birthday

Up-Hill

Amor Mundi

The Thread of Life

LOUISA S. BEVINGTON (later GUGGENBERGER) (b.1845)

Morning

Afternoon

Twilight

Midnight

from Two Songs

Wrestling

ALICE MEYNALL (1847-1922)

Renouncement

The Shepherdess

Maternity

Parentage

A Dead Harvest

Chimes

EDITH NESBIT (1858-1924)

Song

Among His Books

The Gray Folk

Villeggiature

AMY LEVY (1861-1889)

London Poets

Epitaph

A London Plane-Tree

In the Mile End Road

The Old House

MARY COLERIDGE (1861-1907)

The Other Side of a Mirror

A Moment

In Dispraise of the Moon

The Poison Flower

An Insincere Wish Addressed to a Beggar

Marriage

The White Woman

Notes

Index of First Lines

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