SONNET [44] XLIV. Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex. Charlotte Smith (née Turner) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
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Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. N22357 Smith, Charlotte Turner, 1749-1806. Elegiac sonnets, and other poems. By Charlotte Smith. The first Worcester edition, from the sixth London edition, with additions. Printed at Worcester [Mass.] by Isaiah Thomas, sold by him in Worcester, and by said Thomas and Andrews in Boston 1795 p. 64. xix,[2],22-126,[2]p.,[5] leaves of plates: ill.; 15 cm. (12mo)

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SONNET [ 44 ] XLIV. Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex . PRESS'D by the Moon , mute arbitress of tides , While the loud equinox its pow'r combines , The sea no more its swelling surge confines , But o'er the shrinking land sublimely rides . The wild blasts , rising from the western cave , Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed ; Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead ,

Middleton is a village on the margin of the sea in Sussex , containing only two or three houses . There were formerly several acres of ground between its small church and the sea ; which now , by its continual encroachments , approaches within a few feet of this half ruined and humble edifice . The wall , which once surrounded the churchyard , is entirely swept away , many of the graves broken up , and the remains of bodies interred washed into the sea : Whence human bones are found among the sand and shingles on the shore .

And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave ! With shells and seaweed mingled , on the shore , Lo ! their bones whiten in the frequent wave ; But vain to them the winds and waters rave ; They hear the warring elements no more : While I am doom'd — by life's long storm opprest , To gaze with envy , on their gloomy rest .