WRITTEN WHEN THE MIND WAS OPPRESSED. Ann Batten Cristall 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. T126557 Cristall, Ann Batten. Poetical Sketches by Ann Batten Cristall. London Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church Yard 1795 pp. 153-156. [14],187,[1]p.; 8⁰.

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WRITTEN WHEN THE MIND WAS OPPRESSED . WANDERING amid the horrors of the night , Musing , my sighs mix with the whistling wind , Dim watery shadows shroud my feeble sight , And deep reflection fills my labouring mind . Alone , amid the deadly midnight glooms , I hear the winds rush wildly through the waste , My strengthen'd soul its various powers assumes , While painful feelings agitate my breast . " Alas ! " I thought , " Where tends this toil of life , " Unhappy , vain , delusive , frail , and short , " Envelop'd 'mid disease , death , sin , and strife , " As if weak man was his Creator's sport ? " Beneath the thunder on the desert strand , I listen to the solemn ocean's roar , Aw'd by the powerful elements I stand , And 'mid their fierce convulsions Heaven adore . But the more fatal storms which rage within With stronger fears my youthful mind dismay ; Follies and passions , which engender sin , Assail the soul , and on the reason prey . To Nature's sweet enchantments wak'd from nought , Chaos impenetrably dark behind , Early possess'd of consciousness and thought , Impell'd by passions of a new-born mind . Borne on by hope , our youthful transports fly ; Absolute pain alone we deem an ill , Unknowing that those dreary voids are nigh Which restless apathy alone may fill . We dream not , that , as blooms each flower or tree , We blossom , shoot , improve , but to decay , Some new-felt pleasure springs from all we see , Till rapid time doth Nature's truths display . Yet 'midst this beauteous world our sweeten'd state Would smile , when sooth'd by friendship's kindly breath ; But a drear darkness terminates our fate , And every human bosom starts from death .