Author: Harvey, Jane (b. 1776)
Title: Poems on Various Subjects.
Date: 1797
Descriptive and Critical Essay
Jane Harvey published a volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, in 1797 which, as the title claims, consists of poetry about a wide array of topics. The volume begins with the title page, followed by five pages of subscribers. The first six pages of poetry are all sonnets. The first of which, titled ‘Sonnet to Moonlight,’ reads:
All nature now is hush’d in silent sleep,
And thro’ the wood scarce breathes the soft’ned gale:
Arise, fair Orb! from climes beyond the deep,
And o’er Northumbria cast thy silver beil:
From busy day, and all its cares, retir’d,
The pensive muse enjoys this tranquil hour,
And loves, fair Cynthia, by thy beams inspir’d,
Her spirit on the poet’s beast to pour,
Then welcome, queen of night! to these lone shades,
My joy shall be days’ giddy throng to leave;
To mark thy beauties spreading o’er the glades,
And seek calm quiet each returning eve:
The fetting sun shall pass unheeded by,
Nor shall his absent rays call forth one sigh. (9)
This sonnet sets the theme for those to follow; each of which, except for one simply titled ‘Sonnet,’ is a sonnet to something. ‘Sonnet to Autumn’ sticks with the theme of nature introduced in the first sonnet, and is about autumn returning and taking over nature, changing the air and the land. ‘Sonnet to Memory,’ the third sonnet, also develops the nature theme. In this sonnet, Harvey declares that she does not want to reflect on her memories, because the memories of the past make her downhearted. Though she reflects on them as good memories, she longs to be in that time and place again and the impossibility of doing so distresses her. Other sonnets in this volume include ‘Sonnet to Hope,’ ‘Sonnet to Jesmond Dean,’ ‘Sonnet to a Partridge,’ and ‘Sonnet to a Swallow.’ These sonnets are all very melancholy and portray longing for times that have passed. In ‘Sonnet to a Swallow, for instance,’ Harvey longs for the return of a swallow that accompanied her during the summer months but then moved on to warmer climates once autumn arrived.
Harvey also writes about a bird in ‘Sonnet to a Partridge,’ in which she finds and analogy for herself in a partridge that is hunted and killed and therefore will never be happy or engaged again:
Deep thro’ the valley founds the thund’ring gun,
Arm’d with quick death, nor sounds, alas, in vain:
Thou bleed’st, poor bird! thy little life is done;
For thee, no more shall wave the golden grain;
No more the hedge-row be thy peaceful home;
Nor shall thy gentle young ones call thee there;
No more o’er fields or woodland shalt thou roam,
Thou’rt dead to happiness, -- and dead to care. (12)
Following the final sonnet is a poem called ‘Florella’s Absence From Town.’ This poem, which continues the melancholy from the preceding sonnets, is about a woman who moves from the city into a rural area, and painfully misses the city that she loves:
Far, far from me is now the sprightly ball;
The gentle minuet, and the country dance:
For nought is minded in this dismal hall,
But hateful politics, and news from France.Ah! far from me are all those pleasures fled,
Those joys of life on which each fair one doats,
The train some yards behind, the feather’d head,
The glare of beaux, and blaze of scarlet coats! (14)
These two stanzas discuss what the narrator, Florella, misses about city life. She misses dancing and music, but all she hears about in the rural area she is in is politics. She continues to describe aspects of rural life she does not like:
What mortal can endure the hours they keep?
They rise each morning with the rising sun;
The noisy lark disturbs my balmy sleep,
And then the torment of the day’s begun.Soon as the clock strikes six they breakfast here;
But did I do so when I liv’d in town?
Ah! six o’clock is only midnight there,
For thank my stars I never rose till noon.Ah1 who can bear to walk for three long miles,
Thro’ fields, where scarce three people can see?
They tell me, Flora at this season smiles,
But if she smiles on them, she frowns on me. (15)
Unaccustomed to rural life, Florella cannot comprehend the daily routine of the people who now surround her. In this excerpt, Florella poses a question in each stanza, signaling that Harvey may have expected her readers to agree with her view on city versus rural life. By the end of the poem, despite the rural townspeople attempting to sway Florella to appreciate their ways of life, her heart still longs for the city.
‘An Epistle to a Young Lady,’ on page 25 of Poems on Various Subjects, is the first poem to contain a date that the poem was written. It is a letter to a young lady whom Harvey calls “My Dear,” and is dated “Newcastle, 7th May, 1793.” She begins this poem, which replies to one sent to her, by addressing a picture that the young lady took from her one night. Harvey made certain to assure the young lady that she did not lose any sleep over its disappearance, because she had other things on her mind:
But slaughter, war, and Dumourier.
The Austrians, their camps and tents,
The Prussians, and the siege of Mentz;
I should not wonder very soon
If France makes war against the moon! (25)
This bit of humor at the end of this excerpt derives from the solemn topic of war that she was talking about, and sets up what she truly wants to talk about in this letter; spring:
But, as I am no politician,
I will, my dear, with your permission,
Now write a little of the spring,
(A theme we poets love to sing). (25)
Harvey then goes on to write, as she claims that poets often do, about the flowers, birds, and charms of spring. She continues the conversational and personal tone she established earlier in the poem, writing “Bless me! my paper’s almost done, (I really thought ’twas scarce begun)” (26). She closes the poem by assuring the young lady that all of her friends are well, and that she remains “Your most affectionate, J.H.” She does include a ‘P.S.,’ despite her previous claim that she was out of room, and finally ends with “Excuse me, I can add no more.”
Later in the volume comes ‘A Sketch of the Character of Queen Elizabeth,’ with a note under the title that reads, “(The Author’s first Essay in Blank Verse)” (31). This statement may warn the reader about the poem’s possible inferiority. In this poem, Harvey discusses the British Navy at the hand of Queen Elizabeth:
On her true wisdom shed its choicest dew
And guided all her counsels; in her heart
Her people reign’d supreme; their griefs their joys,
Eliza made her own; and from the yoke
Of Roman superstition, and the rage
Of furious zeal protected this fair isle:
At her command the British Navy rose,
Whose swelling sails with fav’ring breezes fill’d,
Explor’d each distant clime, and rear’d that flag,
Which still retains the emire of the sea;
While commerce spread her wide extending power
From distant Ganges to the Atlantic main. (31)
This poem emphasizes the power of Queen Elizabeth and suggests that her enemies fear her and her “wide extending power,” offering a proto-feminist assertion in Harvey’s part that promotes the power of a woman in a time where women were not expected to have power. It is particularly significant that this woman is the Queen of England, who presides over a large empire, and therefore has great influence in the world.
Poems on Various Subjects concludes with ‘The Life-Boat of the Soul,’ which differs from the preceding poems in that a subtitle reads, “By Jane Harvey, of Newcastle” (45). This poem, which is essentially about hope (like ‘Sonnet to Hope,’ which appears earlier), is about taking a voyage on a boat into the ocean, sailing away from cares and sorrows, only to be met by a storm and “raging billow,” and in turn losing the boat. Yet this is where Harvey finds her hope:
Yet, let the stormy whirlwind blow,
The threat’ning surges roll,
In thee, immortal Hope! we find
The Life-boat of the soul. (45)
This is a fitting end to the volume: a poem about sailing away from problems only to encounter new ones, and nevertheless to find hope in an unlikely scenario and in an unexpected fashion.
Source
Harvey, Jane. Poems on Various Subjects. Newcastle upon Tyne: D. Akenhead and Sons, 1797.
Prepared by Lauren Falconar, University of Nebraska, April 2018
© Lauren Falconar, 2018