Poem of the Day: ‘I Can in Groups These Mimic Flowers Compose’
In 1783, on her husband’s being remanded to debtor’s prison, Smith took up residence with him in his incarceration and there produced the first of her 10 novels.
The novelist and poet Charlotte Turner Smith (1749–1806) married at 15, under duress, largely to ease her father’s straitened financial circumstances. In the course of a frequently turbulent marriage, she bore 12 children, six of whom lived to survive her. In 1783, on her husband’s being remanded to debtor’s prison, Smith took up residence with him in his incarceration and there produced the first of her 10 novels. Although prolific as a prose writer, she hoped that her literary reputation would rest on her Elegiac Sonnets. This 91st of those sonnets, adhering to the Shakespearan ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme, resists the impulse of the ekphrastic poem to dwell on a work of art. Instead, the sonnet highlights the triviality and futility of artistic endeavor in the face of human loss.
Sonnet XCI: I Can in Groups These Mimic Flowers Compose
by Charlotte Turner Smith
Reflections on Some Drawings of Plants
I can in groups these mimic flowers compose,
These bells and golden eyes, embathed in dew;
Catch the soft blush that warms the early Rose,
Or the pale Iris cloud with veins of blue;
Copy the scallop’d leaves, and downy stems,
And bid the pencil’s varied shades arrest
Spring’s humid buds, and Summer’s musky gems:
But, save the portrait on my bleeding breast,
I have no semblance of that form adored,
That form, expressive of a soul divine,
So early blighted, and while life is mine,
With fond regret, and ceaseless grief deplored—
That grief, my angel! with too faithful art
Enshrines thy image in thy Mother’s heart.
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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, The Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.
