[Page 46]

SONNET [26] XXVI. To the River Arun.

1 ON thy wild banks, by frequent torrents worn,
2 No glittering fanes, or marble domes appear,
3 Yet shall the mournful muse thy course adorn,
4 And still to her thy rustic waves be dear.
5 For with the infant Otway, lingering here,
[*]

LINE 5. For with the infant Otway, lingering here.

Otway way born at Trotten, a village in Sussex. Of Woolbeding, another village on the banks of the Arun, which runs through them both, his father was rector. Here it was therefore that he probably passed many of his early years. The Arun is here an inconsiderable stream, winding in a channel deeply worn, among meadow, heath and wood.

6 Of early woes she bade her vot'ry dream,
7 While thy low murmurs sooth'd his pensive ear,
8 And still the poet consecrates the stream.
9 Beneath the oak and birch, that fringe thy side,
10 The firstborn violets of the year shall spring,
11 And in thy hazles, bending o'er the tide,
12 The earliest nightingale delight to sing:
13 While kindred spirits, pitying, shall relate
14 Thy Otway's sorrows, and lament his fate!
[Page]

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 61K / ZIP - 7.3K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 679 / ZIP - 599 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 1.4M)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): SONNET [26] XXVI. To the River Arun.
Themes:
Genres: sonnet

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Smith, Charlotte Turner, 1749-1806. Elegiac sonnets, and other poems. By Charlotte Smith. The first Worcester edition, from the sixth London edition, with additions. Printed at Worcester [Mass.]: by Isaiah Thomas, sold by him in Worcester, and by said Thomas and Andrews in Boston, 1795, pp. 46-[]. xix,[2],22-126,[2]p.,[5] leaves of plates: ill.; 15 cm. (12mo) (OTA N22357)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Charlotte Smith (née Turner)