Anne Grant: April 2012

Friday, April 13, 2012

Similiarities, Differences, and Judgements

Monday, April 9, 2012

Interview

1. Where are you from and what is your family like?

I was born in Glasgow, Scotland but I grew up in England until I moved to New York between 1757 and 1768. When I was fourteen, I returned to Glasgow where I met and married my husband, Reverend James Grant, who was the minister of Laggan in Inverness-shire. I had twelve children, eight of whom were alive when my husband perished in 1801. Deep in debt and without a job, I turned to writing to pay the bills and deal with my grief. I had friends of status who had 3000 people subscribe to my first volume of verse.

My life continued to grow more grim as I continued to age. In 1820, I fell and became diabled. It took my friend Walter Scott five years to obtain a small pension for me. There were successive deaths of all my children except my dead son, John-Peter Grant who in 1844 published my autobiography and letters.

2. What events in your early life got you interested in the arts?

During my time in New York, I read a good deal. My friend/mentor, Catalina Schuyler introduced me to such writers as Shakespeare, Pope, Addison, and other writers. I had no real accomplishments in my life but I loved the natural world and I had experienced much of it.

The real thing that got me writing though was the death of my husband. I had always had a knack for writing, but with no other way to support my children, writing became my main source of income. Writing was also the way I let out my grief as I lost my husband and almost all of my children.

3. What role did mentors play in helping you develop the interests and talents you have as an artist?

My mentor, Catalina Schuyler, very much helped develop my interests and talents as an artist. Catalina introduced me to such writers as Shakespeare, Pope, Addison, as well as other writers. Catalina was a friend to me as well. She inspired me to read which is one of the most important things a writer can do besides experience which I had plenty of.

4. What was the world of art like in your particular art field when you entered it?

There were not many women who were writers during the enlightenment era. Two other women writers were popular during the enlightenment era, Elizabeth Hamilton and Christian Isobel Johnstone. Our writing very much influenced the world and women. Most people were exploring the ideas or reason and science in their writing.

The enlightenment era was known as “The Age of Reason” but it was also a great time for many people to create. My poetry, letters, and essays were about the Highlands and all of my personal experiences.

5. How did the major cultural, economic, and political situations impact your work?

I wrote an entire book on my time in the United States before the revolution, it was Memoirs of an American Lady. I often described the disappearance of a sizable portion of the Highland population. I feared and desired assimilation for these people. I often talked of Scottish history, such as the adventures of Bonnie Prince Charles.

I was politically conservative, as in I was for the church and the monarchy and not for the principles of the French revolution, and I often wrote of this. I started a small school in Edinburgh and would entertain Scottish writers of persuasion in my home.

6. What were your major accomplishments and methods you used in your art?

The methods I used in my art were writing from what I knew. I re-wrote Gaelic songs. I told of Scottish history. I wrote of the Highlands. I wrote of my memories, my experiences, my life.

My major accomplishments were definitely all of my published works:

Poems on various subjects. 1803.
Letters from the mountains. 3 vols, 1807.
The Highlanders and other poems. 1808, 1810, 1813.
Memoirs of an American lady [Catalina Schuyler]; with sketches of manners and scenery in America. 2 vols, 1808.
Essays on the superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland. 2 vols, 1811.
Eighteen-hundred and thirteen: a poem in two parts. 1814.
Popular models and impressive warnings for the sons and daughters of industry. 2 vols, 1815.
Blue bell of Scotland. 1835?
The touchstone: or the claims and privileges of true religion briefly considered. 1842.
Memoir and correspondence of Mrs. Grant, ed. J. P. Grant. 3 vols, 1844.
Letters concerning Highland affairs in the 18th century. 1896.

7. What were the key opportunities that led to turning points in your life and art?

There were many key opputunities that led to turning points in my life and art. Traveling as a child gave me much landscape and memories in which to write from. My influential friends who helped me get my books published and read provided me with the opurtunity to become known. Catalina Schuyler showed me the best writers and I began to learn from them.

Another great opportunity was starting my smalls school and entertaining many Scottish writers of political persuasion. This helped me to form my own beliefs as I saw how much I disagreed with their beliefs.

8. What hardships or roadblocks did you have to overcome in order to be an artist?

There were many hardships in my life. My husband died and left me in debt and with eight children to care for. I lived longer than all of my children but one. I had to work hard to keep friends of status who would promote my works and help me publish. I had to care for my children and find time to write.

I became disabled in my later years and I had no one to care for me. It took five years for my friend Walter Scott to get me a small pension which would be the only steady income I would receive.

9. Who are people that admire you both in the arts and beyond why do they inspire you?

My husband, Reverend James Grant, very much inspired me. His death, as well as the death of all of my children, scarred me in ways that never truly healed. Life without them was hard. The pain that their deaths left behind inspired me to write to pay the bills, to write to end the grief.

Walter Scott inspired me because he was there for me as I started my school. Walter helped me receive me pensions and he spoke very highly of me. He wrote of me and said, Walter Scott wrote of her: “Her literary works although composed amidst misfortune and privation, are written at once with simplicity and force, and uniformly bear the stamp of a virtuous and courageous mind.”

10. What personal stories (anecdotes) best illustrate how you became successful in the arts?

I was successful in the arts because I had had experience. I had the experience of my heart breaking over and over again as my husband and children died. I also had the experience of travel. I lived all over Scotland, New England, and New York.

I was also successful because of the help of my friends. My friends used their status to help me not only get my books published, but to also have my books read.

Moody, Ellen. "Foremother Poet: Anne Grant (nee Macivar) (1755-1853)." Ellen and Jim Have a Blog, Two. N.p., 02 04 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/foremother-poet-anne-grant-nee-macivar-1755-1853/>.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Artifact#10

"John Constable, Vale of Dedham, Scotland." (Moody)

This is another painting of my home Scotland, done by a man from Scotland.

Moody, Ellen. "Foremother Poet: Anne Grant (nee Macivar) (1755-1853)." Ellen and Jim Have a Blog, Two. N.p., 02 04 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/foremother-poet-anne-grant-nee-macivar-1755-1853/>.

Artifact#9

“Edinburgh, early 19th century, an engraving by William Miller after Turner.” (Moody)
This is the place where I would later be buried as I died from the flu in 1838.

Artifact#8

“J.M.W. Turner, Ben Arthur, Scotland, an appropriate image.” (Moody)

This is a beautiful painting of what I remember Scotland and the Highlands looking like.

Artifact#7

“The way was long, the wind was cold,

The Minstrel was infirm and old;

His wither'd cheek, and tresses gray,

Seem'd to have known a better day;

The harp, his sole remaining joy,

Was carried by an orphan boy.

The last of all the Bards was he,

Who sung of Border chivalry;

For, welladay! their date was fled,

His tuneful brethren all were dead;

And he, neglected and oppress'd,

Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.

No more on prancing palfrey borne,

He caroll'd, light as lark at morn;

No longer courted and caress'd,

High placed in hall, a welcome guest,

He pour'd, to lord and lady gay,

The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were changed, old manners gone;

A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had call'd hs harmless art a crime.

A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor,

He begg'd his bread from door to door.

And timed, to please a peasant's ear,

The harp, a king had loved to hear.

He pass'd where Newark's stately tower

Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:

The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye--

No humbler resting-place was nigh,

With hesitating step at last,

The embattled portal arch he ass'd,

Whose ponderous grate and massy bar

Had oft roll'd back the tide of war,

But never closed the iron door

Against the desolate and poor.

The Duchess marked his weary pace,

His timid mien, and reverend face,

And bade her page the menials tell,

That they should tend the old man well:

For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;

In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,

Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,

And the old man was gratified,

Began to rise his minstrel pride:

And he began to talk anon,

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,

And of Earl Walter, rest him, God!

A braver ne'er to battle rode;

And how full many a tale he knew,

Of the old warriors of Buccleuch:

And, would the noble Duchess deign

To listen to an old man's strain,

Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,

He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,

That, if she loved the harp to hear,

He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtain'd;

The Aged Minstrel audience gain'd.

But, when he reach'd the room of state,

Where she, with all her ladies, sate,

Perchance he wished his boon denied:

For, when to tune his harp he tried,

His trembling hand had lost the ease,

Which marks security to please;

And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,

Came wildering o'er his aged brain--

He tried to tune his harp in vain!

The pitying Duchess praised its chime,

And gave him heart, and gave him time,

Till every string's according glee

Was blended into harmony.

And then, he said, he would full fain

He could recall an ancient strain,

He never thought to sing again.

It was not framed for village churls,

But for high dames and mighty carls;

He had play'd it to King Charles the Good,

When he kept court in Holyrood,

And much he wish'd yet fear'd to try

The long-forgotten melody.

Amid the strings his fingers stray'd,

And an uncertain warbling made,

And oft he shook his hoary head.

But when he caught the measure wild,

The old man raised his face, and smiled;

And lighten'd up his faded eye,

With all a poet's ecstasy!

In varying cadence, soft or strong,

He swept the sounding chords along:

The present scene, the future lot,

His toils, his wants, were all forgot:

Cold diffidence, and age's frost,

In the full tide of song were lost;

Each blank in faithless memory void,

The poet's glowing thought supplied;

And while his harp responsive rung,

'Twas thus the Latest Minstrel sung.”

This is the introduction of a poem by Walter Scott that I rather favored because it tied along with my politically conservative beliefs. I was for the monarchy and the church, not for the French revolution.

Scott, Walter. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, and A. Constable and Co., , 1805. Web. <http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/minstrel.html>.

Artifact#6

This is the cover of my novel Letters From The Mountains, Correspondence of A Lady.

Artifact#5

Chapter I: "Province of New York - Origin of the Settlement at Albany – Singular Possession held by the Patron — Account of his Tenants."

It is well known that the province of New York, anciently called Munhattoes by the Indians, was originally settled by a Dutch colony, which came from Holland, I think, in the time of Charles the Second. Finding the country to their liking, they were followed by others more wealthy and better informed. Indeed some of the early emigrants appear to have been people respectable both from their family and character. Of these the principal was the Cuylers and the Schuylers, the Renselaers, the Delancys, the Cortlandts, the Tinbrooks, and the Beckamans, who have all of them been since distinguished in the late civil wars, either as persecuted loyalists or triumphant patriots. I do not precisely recollect the motives assigned to the voluntary exile of persons who were evidently in circumstances that might admit their living in comfort at home, but am apt to think that the early settlers were those who adhered to the interest of the Stadtholder’s family, a party which, during the minority of King William, were almost persecuted by the high republicans. They who came over at a later period probably belonged to the party which opposed the Stadtholder, and which was then in its turn depressed. These persons afterward distinguished themselves by an aversion, almost amounting to antipathy, to the British army , and indeed to all the British colonists. Their notions were mean and contracted; their manners blunt and austere; and their habits sordid and parsimonious: as the settlement began to extend they retired, and formed new establishments, afterwards called Fishkill, Esopus, &c.

To the Schuylers, Cuylers, Delancys, Cortlandts, and a few others, this description did by no mean to apply. Yet they too bore about them the tokens of former affluence and respectability, such as family plate, portraits of their ancestors executed in a superior style, and the great numbers of original paintings, some of which were much admired by acknowledged judges. Of these the subjects were generally taken from sacred history.

I do not recollect the exact time, but think it was during the last years of Charles the Second, that a settlement we then possessed at Surinam was exchanged for the extensive(indeed at that time boundless) province of Munhattoes, which , in compliment to the hier apparent, was called New York. Of the part of that country then explored, the most fertile and beautiful was situation far inland, on the banks of the Hudson’s River. This copious and majestic stream is navigable 170 miles from its mouth for vessels of 60 or 70 tons burthen. Near the head of it, as a kind of barrior against the natives, and a central resort for traders, the foundation was laid of a town called Oranienburgh, and afterwards by the British, Albany.

After the necessary precaution of erecting a small stockaded fort for security, a church was built in the center of the intended town. Which served in different respects as a kind of land-mark. A gentleman of the name of Renzelaer was considered as in a manner lord paramount of this city. A pre-eminence which his successor still enjoys, both with regard to the town and the land adjacent. The original proprietor having obtained from the high and mighty states a grant of lands, which beginning at the church, extended twelve miles in every direction, forming a manor twenty -four Dutch miles in length, the same in breadth, including lands not only of the best quality of any in the province, but the most happily situated both for the purposes of commerce and agriculture. This great proprietor was looked up to as much as republicans in a new county could be supposed to look up to any one. He was called the Patroon, a designation tantamount to the lord of the manor. Yet, in the distribution of the lands, the sturdy Belgian spirit of independence set limits to the power and profits of this lord of the forests as he might then be called. None of these lands were either sold or alienated. The more wealthy settlers, as the Schuylers, Cuylers, &c. took very extensive leases of the fertile plains along the river, with boundless liberty of woods and pasturage, to the westward. The terms were, that the lease should hold while water runs and grass grows, and the landlord, to receive the tenth sheaf. Of every kind of grain the ground produces. Thus ever accommodating the rent to the fertility of the soil, and changes of the season, you may suppose the tenants did not greatly fear a landlord, who could not neither remove them nor heighten their rents. Thus, without pride or property, they had all the independence of proprietors. They were like German princes, who after furnishing their contingent to the Emperor, might make war on him when _____ chose. Besides the profits(yearly augmenting) which the patroon drew from his ample possessions, he held in his own hands an extensive and fruitful demesne. Yet preserving in a great measure the simple and frugal habits of his ancestor, his wealth was not an object of envy, nor a source of corruption to his fellow citizens. To the northward of these bounds, and at the southern extremity also, the Schuylers and Cuylers held lands of their own. But the only other great landholders I remember, holding their land by those original tenures, were Philips and Cortlandt; their land lay also on the Hudson’s River, half way down to New York, and were denominated Philips’ and Cortlandt’s manors. At the time of the first settling of the country the Indians were numerous and powerful along all the river; but they consisted of wandering families, who, though they affixed some sort of local boundaries for distinguishing the hunting grounds of each tribe, could not be said to inhabit any place. The cool and crafty Dutch governors being unable to cope with them in arms, purchased from them the most valuable tracts for some petty consideration. They affected great friendship for them; and, while conscious of their own weakness, were careful not to provoke hostitities; and they silently and insensibly, established themselves to the west.”

This is the first chapter of my novel Memoirs of An American Lady.

Grant, Anne. Memoirs of An American Lady. London: Strahan and Preston, 1808. Web. <http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/art/grant.html>.

Artifact#5

This is the cover of my book Letters From The Mountains Volume 2 which was published in 1805.

Artifact #4

This is the cover of my first publishing of verse, which I did in 1803.

Artifact#3

“Oh, where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone?
Oh, where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone?
He’s gone with streaming banners were noble deeds are done,
And my sad heart will tremble till he comes safely home;
He’s gone with streaming banners where noble deeds are done,
And my sad heart will tremble, till he comes safely home”

I translated many Gaelic songs in my book Poems on Various Subjects and this is a verse of the song, “Oh, Where, tell me, is your Highland Lassie Gone?”

Artifact#2

“And Ramsay , once the Horace of the North,
Who charm’d with varied strains the listening Forth ,
Bequeath’d to him the shrewd peculiar art
To satire nameless graces to impart,
To wield her weapons with such sportive ease,
That, while they wound, they dazzle and they please …
The independent wish, the taste refin’d,
Bright energies of the superior mind,
And Feeling’s generous pangs, and Fancy’s glow,
And all that liberal Nature could bestow,
To him profusely given, yet given in vain;
Misfortune aids and points the stings of pain.”

This poem is of a man named Burns and I hoped to outline his achievements.

Artifact#1

Familiar Epistle to a Friend

Dear Beatrice, with pleasure I read your kind letter;
On the subject, methinks, there could scarce be a better:
How vivid the scenes it recall’d to my view,
And how lively it waken’d remembrance anew!
Yet our souls are so crusted with housewifely moss,
That Fancy’s bright furnace yields nothing but dross:

Surrounded with balling, and squalling, and prattle,
With handmaids unhandy, and gossipping tattle,
Cut fingers to bandage, and stockings to darn,
And labyrinths endless of ill-manag’d yarn,
Through whose windings Daedalean bewilder’d we wander,
Like draggle-tail’d nymphs of the mazy Meander,
Till at length, like the Hero of Macedon, tir’d
Of the slow perseverance untwisting required,
We brandish our scissors, resolved on the spot,
Since we cannot unravel, to cut through the knot.

Blest vicars of England! how happy your wives!
Though devoted to pudding and plain work their lives,
Though quotations and homilies forced to endure,
While fumes of tobacco their graces obscure;
Though their quiet be disturb’d with the nursery’s noise,
Though their girls should be hoydens, or dunces their boys,
With the tangling of yarn they are never perplex’d,
More difficult to clear than his Reverence’s text.
While with labour incessant our toils we renew,
To furnish fine linen, and purple and blue,
Such a series of self-same minute occupation
Yields nothing, you’ll own, to enliven narration;
And as for the friend of all poets, Invention,
‘Tis a thing, of late years, I scarce think of or mention:

Or of useful inventions alone make my boast,
Such as saving potatoes and turnips from frost;
Or repulsing whole armies of mice from my cheese;
Or plucking the quills without paining the geese.

What a change on the scene and the actors appears?
‘Tis now but a dozen and odd of short years,
Since when we, and the season, and fancy were young,
flowery banks our gay whimsies we sung,
Regardless of profit, and hopeless of fame,
Yet heedless of censure, and fearless of blame,
We travers’d the vale, or we haunted the grove,
As free as the birds that were chanting above;
Where the fair face of Nature was bright with a smile.
Enraptur’d in silence we gaz’d for a while;
Then as clear and as artless resounded our lays,
As the sky or the stream we endeavour’d to praise;
While strains of delight the pure pleasures impart
That thrill’d through each bosom, and glow’d in each heart;
But when from the east, with dun vapours o’ercast,
Came horrors bestriding the bleak howling blast;
When rude echoing rocks with brown cataracts foam’d,
And bewilder’d in mist the sad traveller roam’d;
When to part us, loud storms and deep gullies conspir’d,
And sublime meditation to garrats retir’d;
To the workings of fancy to give a relief,
We sat ourselves down to imagine some grief,
Till we conjur’d up phantoms so solemn and sad,
As, if they had lasted, would make us half mad;
Then in strains so affecting we pour’d the soft ditty,
As mov’d both the rocks and their echoes to pity:
And to prove it, each note of the soul-moving strain
In more sonorous sounds was return’d back again;
And we, silly souls, were so proud of our parts,
When we thought that our pathos had reach’d their hard hearts!

But when grave looking Hymen had kindl’d his torch,
With a pure lambent flame that would glow but not scorch,
The Muses, who plain humble virtues revere,
Were affrighted to look on his brow so austere;
The cottage so humble, or sanctified dome,
For the revels of fancy afforded no room;
And the lyre and the garland, were forc’d to give place
To duties domestic, and records of grace:
Then farewell Illysus, adieu Hippocrene,
The vales of Arcadia and Tempe so green;
To the hills of Judea we now must draw near,
King Lemuel’s good mother’s wise maxims to hear,
And strive to leave none of the duties undone
Which the matron prescrib’d for the spouse of her son;
For my own part, I labour’d and strove with my might
To do all that the proverbs applauded as right:
Fine coverings I made that with tapestry vied,
And with heather and madder my fleeces I dy’d,
While the sun shone I still made the most of his light,
And my candle most faithfully burnt through the night;
And while that and large fires through the winter did glow,
Not a farthing my household would care for the snow:
Their plaids, hose, and garters, with scarlet adorn’d,
Chill December they braved, and its rigours they scorn’d;
Yet these were not all my pretensions to claim
Of a matron industrious and virtuous the name;
My mate (can you doubt it?) was known in the gates,
Among seniors, and elders, and men of estates:
I made him a coat of a grave solemn hue,
Two threads they were black, and the other two blue;
So warm, and so clerical, comely and cheap,
‘Twas a proof both of thrift and contrivance so deep;
His cravats of muslin were spun by my hands,
I knit all his stockings and stitch’d all his bands;
Till the neighbours all swore by St. Bridget herself,
Such a wife was worth titles, and beauty, and pelf.

Quite dead and extinct all poetical fire,
At the foot of the cradle conceal’d lay my lyre;
What witchcraft had alter’d its form I ne’er knew,
But by some means or other a whistle it grew;
The brats in succession all jingled its bells,
While its music to them the piano excels:
But when slowly and surely the cold hand of time
Had stole my complexion, and wither’d my prime,
Resolv’d for a while to respire at my ease,
In Clydesdale I courted the soft western breeze;
Whose fresh breathing whispers my languor could soothe,
With visions of fancy, and dreams of my youth.
While slowly retracing my dear native Clyde,
And reviewing my visage, so chang’d, in its tide,
As sad and reluctant I strove to retire,
To my grasp was presented my trusty old lyre,—
I snatch’d it, I strumm’d it, and thrumm’d it again,
But strove to awaken its music in vain;
So rusty the wire, so enfeebled my hand,
A while in suspence and dumb wonder I stand:
Thus it happen’d they say, to Ulysses of old,
When twenty long years of sad absence had roll’d,
To his Ithaca forc’d in disguise to resort,
When the suitors with uproar were filling his court;
He set his foot forward, and bending his brow,
With a dignified air he demanded his bow;

With joy-mingled sorrow review’d his old friend,
And three times essay’d the tough crescent to bend,
Till the string to his efforts resounded so sharp,
Some thought it a swallow and some an old harp.—
Thus awkward and faint were my efforts at first,
But I rais’d the note higher whenever I durst:
To Friendship and Truth I exalted the lay,
And homewards with music beguil’d the long way;
And now since beyond any doubt it appears,
From duties discharg’d through a series of years,
That nor peace nor industry are banish’d the cell
Where in ease and retirement the Muse loves to dwell;

Once more let us try to awaken the strain,
So friendly to sorrow, so sothing to pain!
The blessings we’ve tasted let’s carefully rate,
And be just to kind Nature, and grateful to Fate;
Thus wisely employing the last closing strain,
We shall not have liv’d or have warbled in vain.
Were the foot-path of life to be travell’d anew,
When we calmly look back with a serious review,
For noisy applause or for tinsel parade,
Would we part with sweet Peace that delights in the shade?
Or blame the kind harbour, remote and obscure,
Where our minds were kept tranquil, our hearts were kept pure?

While with streamers all flying, and wide-swelling sails,
Toss’d high on the billows, the sport of the gales,
The Muse’s fair daughters triumphant were borne
Till the public applause was converted to scorn;
For by vanity guided, so wildly they steer’d,
Or by caprice directed, so frequently veer’d;
Creation’s proud Masters observ’d with a sneer,
That like comets eccentric forsaking their sphere,
Their brightness so gaz’d at, would never produce,
Or pleasure, or profit, or comfort, or use.
[Anna Seward] and [Anne Hunter] thus shone for a day,
How prais’d was each period! how flatter’d each lay!
Till a crop so luxuriant arising of pride,
Affectation, and fifty new follies beside,
The duties and joys of the mother and wife,
The nameless soft comforts of calm private life,
Fell victims together at Vanity’s shrine,
For who could endure to exist and not shine!
Macaulay, of Stuarts had tore up the graves,
To prove half of them fools, and the other half knaves,
And sully’d the mitre and spatter’d the gown,
And flatter’d the mob and insulted the Crown;
Then insensibly shrunk to a faction’s blind tool,
And discover’d too late they had made her their fool.

With virtues, and graces, and beauties beside,
The delight of her friends, of her country the pride,

Say, who could to [Helen Maria Williams] their suffrage refuse,
Or who not be charm’d with her chaste classic Muse?
To the passion for liberty giving loose rein,
At length she flew off to carouse on the Seine;
And growing inebriate while quaffing the draught,
Equality’s new-fangled doctrines she taught;
And murder and sacrilege calmly survey’d;
In the new Pandemonium those demons had made;
Seine’s blood-crimson’d waters with apathy ey’d,
While the glories of old father Thames she decried.
Now with equals in misery hid in some hole,
Her body a prison confining her soul,
From the freedom of Gallia how fain would she fly,
To the freedom which genius shall taste in the sky!
No longer pursue those fond lovers of fame,
Nor envy the honours and trophies they claim;
No further excursive to speculate roam,
But fix our attention and pleasure at home:
Why regret, when celebrity proves such a curse,
he cares of the mother and toils of the nurse:
While the nurse finds delight in sweet infancy’s smiles,
And hope the fond mother’s long trouble beguiles.
“But why these quick feelings, or why this nice ear,
“Or musical accents, if no one must hear?
“Why blossoms of fancy all scatter’d to waste,
“The glow sympathetic, or pleasures of taste?—”

Ask why in the mountains the flow’ret should blow,
Which none but the hermit is destin’d to know?
Why the wild woods re-echo with melody clear,
Which none but the hunter is destin’d to hear?
When often enjoyed and but seldom they’re shewn,
Our riches and pleasures are truly our own:
The milk-maid that carols her wild native airs
To solace her labours, and lighten her cares,
Feels a pleasure more genuine and free from alloy,
Than Catley or Mara could ever enjoy:
Who, while their divisions they warbled aloud,
Depended for joy on the praise of the crowd;

Then blest be the lyre, ever sacred its strain,
In the regions of bliss let it waken again:
When the kind hand of Nature has fitted its strings,
And the dictates of truth and of virtue it sings,
As softly and sweetly it touches the mind,
As Æolus’ harp when ’tis mov’d by the wind;
Untainted by art were the notes it has sung,
It has cheer’d our decline, and has charm’d us when young;
And when useful employments demanded our prime,
Our leisure it soothed without wasting our time:
And when all our sorrows and toils shall be o’er,
Its music perhaps may delight us once more;
When swelling to concords more rich and sublime,
It may rise beyond earth, and may live beyond time.

The blossoms I once so admir’d and caress’d,
That cheer’d my fond heart till they dy’d on my breast,
Which my tears that fell frequent, like soft silent rain,
Could not waken to life and new fragrance again:
There, again, in new sweetness and beauty shall bloom,
And the evergreen plain with fresh odours perfume;
Perhaps while exalted their graces shall rise,
Again their dear verdure shall gladden my eyes!
When the season of fear and of sorrow is o’er,
And our tears and our songs are remember’d no more!

This is a poem of Anne Grant’s. It tells the story of a woman who must give up her artistry (poetry) to take care of and have children. She is now older and wants to revive her art.