Poetry and Sorrow

Listen to:

Poetry and Sorrow (1:01)

by Charlotte Smith

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Should the lone wanderer, fainting on his way,
Rest for a moment of the sultry hours,
And, though his path through thorns and roughness lay,
Pluck the wild rose or woodbine's gadding flowers;
Weaving gay wreaths beneath some sheltering tree,
The sense of sorrow he awhile may lose:
So have I sought thy flowers, fair Poesy!
So charmed my way with friendship and the Muse.
But darker now grows life's unhappy day,
Dark with new clouds of evil yet to come;
Her pencil sickening Fancy throws away,
And weary Hope reclines upon the tomb,
And points my wishes to that tranquil shore,
Where the pale spectre, Care, pursues no more!



gad verb (used without object), gadded, gadding.
to move restlessly or aimlessly from one place to another: to gad about.

from Elegiac Sonnets and other Poems, by Charlotte Smith, 1797.