SONNET TO THE CALBASSIA-TREE. 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. 217.

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SONNET TO THE CALBASSIA-TREE . SUBLIME Calbassia ! luxuriant tree , How soft the gloom thy bright-hued foliage throws ! While from thy pulp a healing balsam flows , Whose power the suff'ring wretch from pain can free : My pensive footsteps ever turn to thee ! Since oft , while musing on my lasting woes , Beneath thy flowery white-bells I repose , Symbol of Friendship dost thou seem to me ; For thus has Friendship cast her soothing shade O'er my unshelter'd bosom's keen distress , Thus sought to heal the wounds which Love has made , And temper bleeding sorrow's sharp excess ! Ah ! not in vain she lends her balmy aid — The agonies she cannot cure are less !