[Page 88]

WRITTEN ON A GLOOMY DAY, IN SICKNESS.

THACKWOOD, 4TH JUNE, 1786.

1 THE gloomy lowering of the sky,
2 The milky softness of the air,
3 The hum of many a busy fly,
4 Are things the cheerful well can spare;
5 But, to the pensive, thoughtful mind,
6 Those kindred glooms are truly dear,
7 When in dark shades such wood-notes wind
8 As woo and win Reflection's ear;
9 The birds that warble over head,
10 The bees that visit every flower,
11 The stream that murmurs o'er its bed,
12 All aid the melancholy hour.
[Page 89]
13 Added to this, the wasting frame,
14 Through which life's pulses slowly beat,
15 Would fain persuade that nought's the same
16 As when health glow'd with genial heat.
17 Where are the spirits, light as air,
18 That self-amus'd, would carol loud?
19 Would find out pleasure everywhere,
20 And all her paths with garlands strow'd?
21 Nature's the same: the Spring returns,
22 The leaf again adorns the tree;
23 How tasteless this to her who mourns
24 To her who droops and fades like me!
25 No emblem for myself I find,
26 Save what some dying plant bestows
27 Save where its drooping head I bind,
28 And mark how strong the likeness grows.
29 No more sweet Eve with drops distill'd
30 Shall melt o'er thee in tender grief;
31 Nor bid Aurora's cup be fill'd
32 With balmy dew from yonder leaf.
33 What, though some seasons more had roll'd
34 Their golden suns to glad thine eye!
35 Yet as a flower of mortal mould
36 'Twas still thy lot to bloom and die.

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Title (in Source Edition): WRITTEN ON A GLOOMY DAY, IN SICKNESS. THACKWOOD, 4TH JUNE, 1786.
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Genres: occasional poem

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Blamire, Susanna, 1747-1794. The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire “The muse of Cumberland.” Now for the first time collected by Henry Lonsdale, M.D. with a preface, memoir, and notes by Patrick Maxwell, ... Edinburgh: John Menzies, 61 Princes Street; R. Tyas, London; D. Robertson, Glasgow; and C. Thurnam, Carlisle. MDCCCXLII., 1842, pp. 88-89.  (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [42.256].)

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Other works by Susanna Blamire