Anna Letitia Barbauld

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

Quotes

 * Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?
 * Hymns in Prose for Children (London: J. Johnson, 1794), Hymn 10, p. 83.

Poems (1773)

 * Poems (London: Joseph Johnson, 1773)


 * Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripen'd in our northern sky.
 * "The Invitation", p. 22.


 * O gently guide my pilgrim feet To find thy hermit cell; Where in some pure and equal sky Beneath thy soft indulgent eye The modest virtues dwell.
 * "Hymn to Content", p. 54.


 * It is to hope, tho' hope were lost.
 * "Song I", p. 68
 * 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.

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.
 * Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew,
 * "To a Lady, with some painted Flowers", pp. 96.

With golden letters on th' illumin'd sky.
 * I read his awful name, emblazon'd high
 * "An Address to the Deity", p. 128.


 * 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.
 * "An Address to the Deity", p. 129.


 * This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
 * "A Summer's Evening Meditation", p. 134.

"The Mouse's Petition" (1773)

 * 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 cheerful 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 destruction lurks unseen, Which men like mice may share, May some kind angel clear thy path, And break the hidden snare.

The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1825)

 * The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, ed. Lucy Aikin (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825)


 * Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear,;br>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.
 * "Life", Vol. I, p. 261.


 * 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", Vol I, p. 315.
 * Compare: "The daisie, or els the eye of the day", Geoffrey Chaucer, Prologue of the Legend of Good Women, line 183.


 * It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse; for I think our plays are growing like sermons, and our sermons like plays.
 * Letter to Miss E. Belsham (Feb. 1771), Vol. II, p. 59.


 * If an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.
 * "An Inquiry into Those Kinds of Distress Which Excite Agreeable Sensations", Vol. II, p. 224.


 * We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true.
 * "Thoughts on the Devotional Taste, and on Sects and Establishments", Vol. II, p. 259.


 * It is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that a human being can be educated, or even nourished and brought up, without imbibing numberless prejudices from every thing which passes around him.
 * "On Prejudice", Vol. II, p. 326.


 * Let us confess a truth, humiliating perhaps to human pride;—a very small part only of the opinions of the coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning; the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought directed to a particular track through some accidental association—in short, by prejudice.
 * "On Prejudice", Vol. II, pp. 326–327.