1797 11
1797.11
The Female Exile
Charlotte Smith
The European Magazine, XXXII (October 1797), p. 264
The Scots Magazine, LIX (November 1797), p. 842
Written at Brighthelmstone, in Nov. 1792.
November's chill blast on the rough beach
is howling,
The surge breaks afar, and then foams to the
shore,
Dark clouds o'er the sea gather heavy and
scowling,
And the white cliffs re'echo the wild wintry
roar.
Beneath that chalk rock, a fair stranger re-
clining
Has found on damp sea-weed a cold lonely
seat;
Her eyes fill'd with tears, and her heart with
repining,
She starts at the billows that burst at
her feet.
There, day after day, with an anxious heart
heaving,
She watches the waves where they mingle
with air;
For the sail which, alas! all her fond hopes
deceiving,
May bring only tidings to add to her care.
Loose stream to wild winds those fair flowing
tresses,
Once woven with garlands of gay summer
flowers;
Her dress unregarded bespeaks her distresses,
And beauty is blighted by grief's heavy
hours.
Her innocent children, unconscious of sorrow,
To seek the gloss'd shell or the crimson
weed stray,
Amus'd with the present, they heed not to-
morrow,
Nor think of the storm that is gathering
today.
The gilt, fairyship, with its ribbon-sail
spreading,
They launch on the salt-pool the tide
left behind;
Ah! victims—for whom their sad mother is
dreading
The multiplied mis'ries that wait on
mankind!
To fair fortune born, she beholds them, with
anguish,
Now wand'rers with her on a once hostile
soil,
Perhaps doom'd for life in chill penury to
languish,
Or abject dependence, or soul-crushing toil.
But the sea-boat, her hopes and her terrors
renewing,
O'er the dim grey horizon now faintly appears;
She flies to the quay, dreading tidings of ruin,
All breathless with haste, half-expiring with
fears.
Poor mourner!—I would that my fortune had
left me
The means to alleviate the woes I deplore;
But, like thine, my hard fate has of affluence
bereft me,
I can warm the cold heart of the wretched
no more.[1]
Notes
1. [Author's note]: "This little Poem, of which a sketch first appeared in blank verse in a poem called "The Emigrants," was suggested by the sight of the group it attempts to describe—a French Lady and her children."