SOLILOQUY. Ann Yearsley (née Cromartie) 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. N22108 Yearsley, Ann, 1753-1806. Poems, on several occasions. By Ann Yearsley, a milkwoman of Bristol [poems only]. The second edition. London printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand 1785 pp. 75-77. xxxii, 127p.

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SOLILOQUY . — What folly to complain , Or throw my woes against the face of Heaven ? Ills , self-created , prey upon my soul , And rob each coming hour of soften'd Peace . What then ? Is Fate to blame ? I chose distress ; Free will was mine ; I might have still been happy From a fore-knowledge of the dire effect , And the sad bondage of resistless love . I knew the struggles of a wounded mind , Not self-indulging , and not prone to vice , Knew all the terrors of conflicting passion , Too stubborn foe , and ever unsubdued ; Yet rashly parley'd with the mighty victor . Infectious mists upon my senses hang , More deadly than Lethean dews which fall From Somnus' bough , on the poor wearied wretch , Whose woes are fully told ! — The dire contagion creeps thro' all my frame , Seizes my heart , and drinks my spirit up . Ah ! fatal poison , whither dost thou tend ? Tear not my soul with agonizing pains ; There needs no more ; the world to me is lost , And all the whirl of life-unneeded thrift . I sicken at the Sun , and fly his beams , Like some sad ghost which loves the moonless night , And pensive shuns the morn . The deep recess Where dim-ey'd Melancholy silent sits , Beckoning the poor desponding slighted wretch , Suits well . 'Tis here I find a gloomy rest ; 'Tis here the fool's loud clatter leaves me still , Nor force unwilling answers to their tale : But , ah ! this gloom , this lethargy of thought , Yields not repose ; I sigh the hour away ; The next rolls on , and leaves me still opprest . But , oh ! swift-footed Time , thou ceaseless racer , Thou who hast chac'd five thousand years before thee , With all their great events , and minute trifles , Haste , with redoubled speed , bring on the hour , When dark Oblivion's dusky veil shall shroud Too painful Memory . —