The Mind

Sonnet LVI: To a Timid Young Lady, Distressed by the Attentions of an Amiable, and Accepted Lover

by Anna Seward 1742–1809

From Original Sonnets on Various Subjects (1799)

The Mind

What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes,
Fair Zillia!--Ah! more dear to LOVE the gaze
That dwells upon its object, than the rays
Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies
The lightning's lambent flash, when neither rise
Thunder, nor storm.--I mark, while transport plays
Warm in thy Lover's eye, what dread betrays
Thy throbbing heart:--yet why from his soft sighs
Fleet'st thou so swift away?--like the young Hind,
That bending stands the fountain's brim beside,
When, with a sudden gust, the western wind
Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide:
See, from the stream, innoxious and benign,
Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine!

MLA

Seward, Anna. “Sonnet LVI: To a Timid Young Lady, Distressed by the Attentions of an Amiable, and Accepted Lover.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/seward/55/.

Chicago

Seward, Anna. “Sonnet LVI: To a Timid Young Lady, Distressed by the Attentions of an Amiable, and Accepted Lover.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/seward/55/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

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