Poem by Charlotte Turner Smith

Sonnet Written in the Churchyard at Middleton in Sussex

PRESSED by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides,
While the loud equinox its power combines,
The sea no more its swelling surge confines,
But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides.
The wild blast, rising from the western cave,
Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed;
Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead,
And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!
With shells and sea-weed mingled, on the shore,
Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave;
But vain to them the winds and waters rave;
They hear the warring elements no more:
While I am doomed, by life’s long storm oppressed,
To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.

1. Sonnet 67. On Passing over a Dreary Tract
2. Sonnet 32. To Melancholy. Written on the Banks of the Arun, October, 1785
3. Sonnet Written at Penshurst in Autumn, 1788
4. Sonnet 42. Composed During a Walk
5. Verses, on the Death of the Same Lady

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