SONNET TO MRS. SIDDONS. Helen Maria Williams Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Williams, Helen Maria, 1759-1827. Poems on various subjects: with introductory remarks on the present state of science and literature in France. London G. and W. B. Whittaker 1823 p. 208.

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SONNET TO MRS. SIDDONS . SIDDONS ! the Muse , for many a joy refin'd , Feelings which ever seem too swiftly fled , For those delicious tears she loves to shed , Around thy brow the wreaths of praise would bind ; But can her feeble notes thy praise unfold ? Repeat the tones each changing passion gives ? Or mark where nature in thy action lives , — Where , in thy pause , she speaks a pang untold ? When fierce ambition steels thy daring breast , When from thy frantic look our glance recedes ? Or , oh , divine enthusiast ! when , opprest By mournful love , that eye of softness pleads ? The sunbeam all can feel , but who can trace The instant light , and catch the radiant grace ?