SONNET TO EXPRESSION. 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. 210.

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SONNET TO EXPRESSION . EXPRESSION , child of soul ! I fondly trace Thy strong enchantments , when the poet's lyre , The painter's pencil , catch thy sacred fire , And beauty wakes for thee her touching grace ! But from this frighted glance thy form avert , When horror checks thy tear , thy struggling sigh , When frenzy rolls in thy impassion'd eye , Or guilt sits heavy on thy lab'ring heart ; Nor ever let my shudd'ring fancy hear The wasting groan , or view the pallid look Of him Chatterton . the muses lov'd , when hope forsook His spirit , vainly to the muses dear ! For , charm'd with heav'nly song , this mournful breast Laments the power of verse could give despair no rest .