Anna Letitia Barbauld
English author (1743–1825)
Anna Letitia Barbauld (June 20, 1743 – March 9, 1825) was an English poet and miscellaneous writer.

Quotes edit
- Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew,
In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew—
Gay without toil, and lovely without art,
They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the heart.- Poems (1773), "To a Lady, with some painted Flowers", p. 96.
- I read his awful name, emblazon'd high
With golden letters on th' illumin'd sky.- Poems (1773), "An Address to the Deity", p. 128.
- Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?
- Hymns in Prose for Children, Hymn 10 (1781).
- Life! we've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
Tis hard to part when friends are dear,—
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear.
Then steal away, give little warning.
Choose thine own time,
Say not "Good-night," but in some brighter clime,
Bid me "Good-morning."- Anna Letitia Barbauld, Life, in Lucy Aikin, ed., The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1825), p. 261.
- Come calm content serene and sweet,
O gently guide my pilgrim feet
To find thy hermit cell.- Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 161.
- With Thee in shady solitudes I walk,
With Thee in busy, crowded cities talk;
In every creature own Thy forming power,
In each event Thy providence adore.- Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 433.
The Mouse's Petition (1773) edit
- Dedicated to Joseph Priestley - Full text at Wikisource
- OH! hear a pensive captive's prayer,
For liberty that sighs;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the prisoner's cries.
- If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.
- The chearful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given;
Let nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of heaven.
- The well-taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame,
Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms,
In every form the same,Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother's soul you find;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.
- So when unseen destruction lurks,
Which men like mice may share,
May some kind angel clear thy path,
And break the hidden snare.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) edit
- Quotes reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
- Man is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.- The Invitation.
- This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.- A Summer's Evening Meditation.
- It is to hope, though hope were lost.
- Come here, Fond Youth. Compare: "Who against hope believed in hope", Romans iv, 18; "Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive", James Montgomery, The World before the Flood.
- So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o’er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;
So dies a wave along the shore.- The Death of the Virtuous. Compare: "The daisie, or els the eye of the day", Geoffrey Chaucer, Prologue of the Legend of Good Women, line 183.
External links edit
- Works by Anna Laetitia Barbauld at Project Gutenberg
- Several of Barbauld's writings are available from the Women Writers Project.
- Prose Works of Anna Barbauld
- Selected works of Anna Barbauld including a full-color facsimile of The Works of Anna Lætitia Barbauld (1825)
- Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian and Freeholder at google books
- The Female Speaker at google books
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