SONNET TO SIMPLICITY. 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. 213.

This e-text is part of the Works section of the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA).

XML created for the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA).

Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This 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.

Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF) text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center; text-align: right; text-align: left; display: inline font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;
SONNET TO SIMPLICITY . NYMPH of the desert ! on this lonely shore , Simplicity , thy blessings still are mine , And all thou canst not give I pleas'd resign , For all beside can soothe my soul no more . I ask no lavish heaps to swell my store , And purchase pleasures far remote from thine : Ye joys , for which the race of Europe pine , Ah , not for me your studied grandeur pour ; Let me where yon tall cliffs are rudely pil'd , Where towers the Palm amidst the mountain trees , Where pendant from the steep , with graces wild , The blue Liana floats upon the breeze , Still haunt those bold recesses , Nature's child , Where thy majestic charms my spirit seize !