Author: Dark. Mariann (dates uncertain; fl. 1818)
Title: Sonnets and Other Poems.
Date: 1818
Descriptive and Crtitical Essay
Mariann Dark’s volume, Sonnets and Other Poems, was printed for the author in 1818. The volume begins with forty pages of front matter, which include: a nineteen page long list of subscribers that contains over 230 names, a “Brief Memoir of the late Henry Stiles, of Whitley, in Wiltshire,” at just over 14 pages, followed by a poem titled, “On the Death of Mr. Henry Stiles,” subtitled, “Many years a constant attendant on the word of God, in the parish church of Bremhill, Wilts.” and signed by W. L. B, who was the minister of the church. The main part of the volume begins with two long poems. Those poems are followed by forty sonnets, and the volume ends with nine more long poems. Beginning with a memoir of Henry Stiles is very telling way start. The volume very much reads as a tribute to her late father, Henry Stiles, while also meditating on ideas of home, and addressing other people, including members of her community and prominent writers such as Charlotte Smith.
In the opening piece, Dark memorializes her father, relaying that he was a valued member of the community, and of the church, and beloved by all. She writes that the only reason she is publishing now is because he believed in her so much. He had encouraged her to send her poetry to Reverend William Lisle Bowles, who wrote the poem that follows the memoir, and after his death she sent it finally and published as her father had wished before his death. With all her talk of her father, it’s not a surprise that much of her poetry is about him. Much of that poetry is tied into the idea of home as well, as the first poem in the volume demonstrates. Titled, “Tribute of Affection to the Memory of a Beloved Father,” subtitled, “Written on leaving a favourite place of residence,” the poem parallels the loss of her father and the loss of her home:
Once, Whitley! once I left thee; love appear’d
And lur’d me from thy vales, by peace endear’d!
But, ah! the parting tear was scarcely dried,
Ere the decree went forth, and ***** died!
Hours gone for ever!—Sacred moments tell,
How was his child employ’d when Henry fell?
Slept then her love, which should have waked to save? (3)
The next poem, “Lines: Written at an early age, on a favourite place of residence,” meditating on home and the beauty of life there, sets the pattern in motion, and it only continues, along with the memorialization of her father, in the following forty sonnets.
All of the sonnets are titled “Sonnet” and whichever number any sonnet carries, the majority have subtitles relating to either where a poem was written, who it was written to, or the occasion on which it was written. The first sonnet, “Sonnet I: Written at Bremhill Church-Yard,” relays her the way she overcame her fear of death after a talk with the minister of Bremhill, “Bowles,” here, the same man who appreciated her father so much, and who her father wanted her to send her poetry to. (She writes several poems referring to Bowles, including “Sonnet XXIV: To the Rev. W. L. Bowles,” and “Sonnet XXXIII: Composed in the Rev. W. L. Bowles’s garden.”) The sonnet almost starts backwards, beginning with the ideas she holds to be true about what happens after death:
Here, when the throb that animated my heart,
When the quick pulse of life shall haply cease,
When I from all I love on earth shall part,
Here may I calmly rest—repose in peace!
Then she explains why the beginning is fact:
For this my wish; no other place so dear;
And here on hopes of heav’n I’ve learn’t to dwell,
Here Bowles’s voice hath taught my soul to fear
No more the narrow, dark, and loathsome cell.
And why she wants it to be fact:
Here too, the sweet retirement I adore,
And all the relatives I love are near;
A requiem o’er my grave some bard may pour,
And thou, best friend! bedew it with a tear.
Finally, she asks for it to all come true, when the time comes:
Oh! grant me, heav’n, this short but fervent pray’r,
Guide me to thee! and peaceful lay me here. (25-26)
The speaker decides that she would be okay with spending her afterlife in the same church yard where all her family is buried, where before she was afraid of the “narrow, dark, and loathsome cell,” so they can be at peace together. It adheres to typical sonnet form, with three quatrains followed by a couplet. This is pretty typical of her sonnets. The following poem, “Sonnet II: To melancholy,” follows the same form, but is one of the very few, though it does address a particular subject, that don’t address a particular person or a particular occasion.
One of the more interesting sonnets is, “Sonnet XII: On reading Mrs. Smith’s sonnets.” Not only is the poem engaging with one of the most prominent poets of the time, praising Charlotte Smith in calling her, “Mistress of magic song!” and a kindred spirit, it is also showing how much Dark longs to be truly good at writing:
I dar’d aspire to feelings such as thine!
And as thy lay the pang of woe disarm’s,
I knelt again before Apollo’s shrine,
And earnest pray’d he would impart the charm
Of thine own melting melody divine (41)
The following sonnet, “Sonnet XIII: On reviewing the preceding,” continues with this call to Charlotte Smith, this time engaging not with Smith as a poet, but with Smith’s poetry itself. There’s even a note to “see Mrs. Smith’s Sonnets,” for “an explanation of this verse,” (42).
Dark not only wrote sonnets addressed to well known people, she also wrote sonnets addressed to friends, family, and neighbors. “Sonnet XXXII: Inscribed to the family at C___y on the death of their parent,” is one of the more striking ones, for both its theoretical anonymity, and it’s change in view. Often the sonnets are to a named person, such as “Sonnet XXIII: To Mrs. Merewether of Blackland,” or “Sonnet XXVIII: Addressed to Mrs. Fry,” but this one is just to a family. Even the place they are from is censored. It changes the very public facing feel of the other sonnets and allows a sense of privacy in their time of grief. After so many of the previous poems have been about Dark’s own feelings about her father’s death, this one turns around to sympathize with others who are going through the same experience that she had before. She invokes a heavenly harp to help soothe their grief:
Strike the sad harp again to strains of grief;
Responsive, as the father’s pensive sigh,
And orphan’s wail, sail’d on the night-wind by.
Oh! wild harp with thy witch’ry bring relief
...
Resound thy deeper not far o’er the plain,
Fitful, and sonorous; till I shall steep
Thy strings with sympathy’s fast falling tear.
Then raise to Heav’n thy strains, and waft above
Tidings of joy—if truth, and worth sincere,
Obtain a portion of Almighty love:
... (68-69)
The harp is supposed to take away the tears of the father and the orphan and bring them respite, while raising joy and love to Eliza in heaven. She’s giving them hope, like others did for her after
her father passed.
The final three sonnets might be the most unique in the group of forty. “Sonnet XXXVIII: Night scene, Oct. 1813,” “Sonnet XXXIX: Morning,” and “Sonnet XL: To the Moon,” all seem to go together. The first, sonnet 38, introduces the queen of the night, who, “Shines on her throne with dazzling lustre bright,” bringing glints and gleams to the dark of night (76). The second, sonnet 39, begins, “Gone is the queen of the night,” as Bremhill awakens and gets to work (77). Finally, sonnet 40, brings the scope back to personal, saying that the moon calms the mind and the heart, invoking Cynthia (a name connected to Artemis, Greek goddess associated with the moon) to, “soothe the pensive hours,” (79). Except for the mention of Bremhill in sonnet 39, these poems are much more generalized than many others of Dark’s. It’s an interesting note to end the sonnets. It’s not actually the end of the volume though.
The last poems cover a variety of topics, from personal to nature, still continuing to be to people or on occasions. “To a Young Woman in Humble Life, in the Last Stage of Consumption,” grieves for the girl who is about to die, but urges her to go to heaven because she was good, before turning towards the narrator. She asks her friends to mourn for her when she is gone, as her friend is leaving now, because she, “would not this world unnotic'd leave / And tho’ no monument my name may bear, / Some gentle boss may for Mariann grieve, / Commune with Heaven—and hope to meet her there,” (83). The poem brings back what Dark learned all the way in the beginning from Reverend Bowles, that in death she would reunite with her loved ones who had gone before her, so she should not be afraid. But it also touches on the feeling she has in the sonnet to Charlotte Smith, where she want’s to be good at writing, and known for something, because she doesn't want to leave the world unnoticed.
The last poem in the volume, “On the Birth of My Sister’s Little Girl, Three Days After the Funeral of Her Grandfather,” is perhaps a fitting way to end, considering how it started. Grief is palpable in the poem, portrayed through the baby waking up crying in the night, having to be soothed back to sleep, and Dark unable to sleep either because she keeps seeing her father die. It seems like the new baby could be a sense of hope for both of them, a new life when they had just lost one so old, but the hope here comes with the thought that their father will be guarding them from above, and, again, they will eventually all reunite in heaven.
Aesthetically, the poetry doesn't do anything extraordinary. Dark writes about typical topics, in typical form, using typical word choice. It’s not anything new, or different, or sensational. It’s not bad either, it just is what it is, to use a modenr expression. The thing that makes the poetry interesting, though, is how personal it is. Every poem feels like something that she actually experienced and wanted to write down for posterity. The beauty comes in the stories she’s telling, sad though they often may be, rather than in the properties of her writing itself. The stories, told directly or inferred, are what make this volume interesting.
Prepared by Reva Graves, Univeristy of Nebraska, Spring 2018
© Reva Graves, 2018