Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Further Reading
QUEEN ELIZABETH I (1533–1603)
Written with a Diamond on her Window at Woodstock
Written on a Wall at Woodstock
Written in her French Psalter
The Doubt of Future Foes
On Monsieur’s Departure
ISABELLA WHITNEY (fl. 1567)
from The Admonition by the Auctor
Wyll and Testament
LADY MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561–1621)
Psalm 57: Miserere Mei, Deus
Psalm 58: Si Vere Utique
Psalm 92: Bonum Est Confiteri
Psalm 139: Domine, Probasti
EMILIA LANYER (156–1645)
The Description of Cooke-ham
LADY MARY WROTH (1587?–1652?)
Sonnets from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
from The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania
ANNE BRADSTREET (1613?–1672)
The Prologue
To my Dear and loving Husband
Before the Birth of one of her Children
A letter to her Husband
Upon the Burning of our House
AN COLLINS (fl. 1653?)
Song
Another Song
MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE (1624?–1674)
An Excuse for so much writ upon my Verses
‘A Poet I am neither born, nor bred’
Of the Theam of Love
Natures Cook
A Dissert
Soule, and Body
A Woman drest by Age
Of the Animal Spirits
A Dialogue betwixt the Body and the Mind
from The Fort or Castle of Hope
A Discourse of Beasts
KATHERINE PHILIPS (1631–1664)
Friendship’s Mystery
To my Excellent Lucasia
An Answer to another persuading a Lady to marriage
To the Queen of Inconstancy
Epitaph on her Son H. P.
Lucasia, Rosania and Orinda parting at a Fountain
APHRA BEHN (1640–1689)
Love Arm’d
Song: The Willing Mistriss
The Disappointment
To Alexis
To the fair Clarinda
MARY LADY CHUDLEIGH (1656–1710)
from The Ladies Defence
To the Ladies
‘EPHELIA’ (fl. 1679?)
On a Bashful Shepherd
To One that asked me why I loved J. G.
Maidenhead
To a Proud Beauty
In the Person of a Lady, to Bajazet
ANNE KILLIGREW (1660–1685)
On a picture painted by her self
On Death
Upon the saying that my verses were made by another
ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA (1661–1720)
The Introduction
A Letter to Daphnis
from The Spleen
The Unequal Fetters
A Nocturnal Reverie
SARAH FYGE EGERTON (1669–1723)
from The Female Advocate
The Liberty
The Emulation
ELIZABETH SINGER ROWE (1674–1737)
To Celinda
The Expostulation
from To one that persuades me to leave the Muses
To Orestes
from A Paraphrase on the Canticles
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1689–1762)
from Six Town Eclogues
The Lover
A Receipt to Cure the Vapours
‘Between your sheets’
MARY COLLIER (1690?-after 1762)
The Womans Labour
LAETITIA PILKINGTON (1712?–1750)
The Wish
Dol and Roger
A Song
A Song
Fair and Softly goes far
MARY LEAPOR (1722–1746)
from Essay on Friendship
from The Head-ache
The Sacrifice
On Winter
Mira’s Will
MARY JONES (d. 1778)
from An Epistle to Lady Bowyer
After the Small Pox
Soliloquy on an empty Purse
ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD (1743–1825)
On a Lady’s Writing
Tomorrow
Washing-Day
The Rights of Woman
ANNA SEWARD (1742–1809)
Verses inviting Mrs C—to Tea
from Colebrook Dale
Invocation, To the Genius of Slumber
HANNAH MORE (1745–1833)
from The Bas Bleu
The Riot
CHARLOTTE SMITH (1749–1806)
Written at the Churchyard at Middleton
On the Aphorism: ‘L’Amitié est l’amour sans ailes’
from Beachy Head
Thirty-Eight
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH (1771–1855)
Grasmere – a Fragment
Floating Island at Hawkshead
Thoughts on my sick-bed
JANE TAYLOR (1783–1824)
Recreation
The Squire’s Pew
FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS (1793–1835)
The Homes of England
The Indian Woman’s Death Song
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806–1861)
from Sonnets from the Portuguese
To George Sand
from Casa Guidi Windows
from Aurora Leigh
A Musical Instrument
CHARLOTTE BRONTË (1816–1855)
‘Again I find myself alone’
‘What does she dream of’
Diving
from Retrospection
EMILY BRONTË (1818–1848)
‘High waving heather’
Plead for Me
Remembrance
‘No coward soul is mine’
Stanzas
ANNE BRONTË (1820–1849)
Song
JEAN INGELOW (1820–1897)
from Divided
The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571
DORA GREENWELL (1821–1882)
A Scherzo
The Sunflower
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830–1894)
Remember
The World
From the Antique
Echo
In an Artist’s Studio
A Birthday
Up-Hill
Amor Mundi
The Thread of Life
LOUISA S. BEVINGTON (later GUGGENBERGER) (b. 1845)
Morning
Afternoon
Twilight
Midnight
from Two Songs
Wrestling
ALICE MEYNELL (1847–1922)
Renouncement
The Shepherdess
Maternity
Parentage
A Dead Harvest
Chimes
EDITH NESBIT (1858–1924)
Song
Among His Books
The Gray Folk
Villeggiature
AMY LEVY (1861–1889)
London Poets
Epitaph
A London Plane-Tree
In the Mile End Road
The Old House
MARY COLERIDGE (1861–1907)
The Other Side of a Mirror
A Moment
In Dispraise of the Moon
The Poison Flower
An Insincere Wish Addressed to a Beggar
Marriage
The White Woman
Notes
Index of First Lines
Copyright
An asterisk by the title in the text indicates that there are notes to the poem at the end of the book.