The Poetical Works of Anna Seward With Extracts from her Literary Correspondence. Edited by Walter Scott ... In Three Volumes |
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The Poetical Works of Anna Seward | ||
WRITTEN IN THE BLANK PAGE OF THE SORROWS OF WERTER.
O thou, who turnest this impassioned leaf,Where Anguish claims the sympathetic grief,
If no relentless prejudice can bind
In stagnant frost the mercy of thy mind;
Of icy absence on the glowing heart,
When all that charm'd the sense, th' affection won,
Dwells in that form, which prudence bids us shun;
That present, soothes each rankling woe to rest,
Departed, desolates the languid breast,
Then thou'lt lament, amidst thy virtuous blame,
The wretched victim of a baneful flame,
Where ill-starr'd Love its deadliest lightning shed
On the pale Suicide's devoted head,
And woes, that would no holier thought allow,
Threw ghastly shadows on the bleeding brow.—
The virtues of the lost-one's happier hours
Shall o'er his fatal errors gently rise,
Live in thy heart, and consecrate thy sighs!
And for the soft compassion thou hast shown
For woes and frailties, to thy soul unknown,
For generous sympathy, which shines confest,
Eternal inmate of the noble breast,
Ne'er may embosom'd grief thine eye-lids dim,—
O! live to love, but not to mourn, like him!
It is said, the characters of Werter, Charlotte, and Albert, the disastrous passion of the former, and the terrible event it produced, were real, together with nearly all the sentiments in Werter's letters; heightened, no doubt, in the powers of eloquence, by passing through the pen of the celebrated German novelist. There has been much ridiculous cant about the fancied immorality of these interesting volumes. The long miseries and tragic death of Werter, breathe an awful warning against imitating his error, and evince the fatal power of indulging an hopeless passion, even for a most amiable object, to blast the destiny, and to render fruitless all the virtues of a naturally generous and good young man. Absurd censurers are angry that he is not made despicable, because he was criminally indiscreet. They are incensed that his woes excite compassion. With equal justice, Othello might be deemed an immoral play, because we cannot with-hold our esteem and pity from the man, who, giving way to suspicious appearances, murders his innocent wife. Werter, by giving way to his affection for an engaged woman, though without the least design to seduce her, renders his own existence insupportable. There is no temptation to copy the conduct of either character; therefore neither the play, nor the novel, can justly be taxed with having an immoral tendency. The light of moral warning breaks out stronger, from beneath the shades in such characters, than from the unmingled brightness of those, who are represented faultless, or at least exempt from any very marked error.
The Poetical Works of Anna Seward | ||