The very favourable reception which has for some years past been given to Lyric Poetry, whether ancient or modern, induces me to offer this small volume to the public, consisting chiefly of Odes, Ballads, and Songs: and I have been further encouraged to take this step, by the success which has attended some of the latter description of composition, already well known to the musical world. My little book will, I hope, escape the censure of being tedious; what other merit it may have besides its brevity, and whether its contents will bear to be read, as well as to be sung, my readers must now be left to judge for themselves.
‘The Author to the Reader’: in Poems, by MRS JOHN HUNTER (1802)
Anne Hunter, the eldest daughter of Robert Home, an army surgeon, had by the age of twenty-three already made a name for herself as a poetess: The Lark, an Edinburgh periodical, published her poem ‘Flower of the forest’, in 1765. She married the famous surgeon John Hunter, who, with his brother William, founded the first school of anatomy in London. She gave birth to four children in five years but only two survived infancy. She held regular literary parties at her home, and formed friendships with Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Carter, Mary Delany, Horace Walpole and Hester Thrale. Her husband did not approve of these salon meetings, and when he died in 1793 she was poorly provided for by his will. She benefited, however, from the sale of her husband’s furniture and library, received a pension from the Queen, and when Parliament in 1799 voted £15,000 for the creation of the Hunterian Museum, she began to live in some comfort. She published two volumes of poetry: Poems (1802) and The Sports of the Genii (1804). She lived in London till her death on 7 January 1821.
It was in London during his visit in 1791 that Haydn met Anne Hunter, and he stayed in a house at 18 Great Pulteney Street, where the violinist-impresario Johann Peter Salomon lived, opposite John Broadwood’s pianoforte shop, near to the Hunters’ home in Leicester Square. A friendship developed between the composer and Anne, and had it not been for her influence, Haydn might possibly never have tried his hand at putting English texts to music. When Haydn set her ‘O tuneful voice’, a poem of unequivocal love and devotion, shortly before his second departure from London, she was a widow, and it is possible that there was more than friendship in their liaison. Haydn possessed a light tenor voice, and would often accompany himself and sing his canzonettas in royal and aristocratic circles.
O Tuneful voice, I still deplore
Those accents which, tho’ heard no more,
Still vibrate on my heart;
In echo’s cave I long to dwell,
And still would hear the sad farewell,
When we were doom’d to part.
Bright eyes, O that the task were mine,
To guard the liquid fires that shine,
And round your orbits play;
To watch them with a vestal’s care,
To feed with smiles a light so fair,
That it may ne’er decay.
Hark what I tell to thee,
Nor sorrow o’er the tomb,
My spirit wanders free,
And waits till thine shall come.
I watch thy speaking eyes,
And mark each precious tear;
I catch thy parting sighs,
Ere they are lost in air.
Hark what I tell to thee, &c. &c.
Now the dancing sunbeams play
On the green and glassy sea;
Come, and I will lead the way,
Where the pearly treasures be.
Come with me, and we will go
Where the rocks of coral grow;
Follow, follow, follow me.
Come, behold what treasures lie
Deep below the rolling waves,
Riches hid from human eye
Dimly shine in ocean’s caves;
Stormy winds are far away,
Ebbing tides brook no delay;
Follow, follow, follow me.
The season comes when first we met,
But you return no more;
Why cannot I the days forget,
Which time can ne’er restore?
O days too sweet, too bright to last,
Are you indeed for ever past?
The fleeting shadows of delight,
In memory I trace;
In fancy stop their rapid flight,
And all the past replace:
But, ah, I wake to endless woes,
And tears the fading visions close!
My mother bids me bind my hair
With bands of rosy hue,
Tie up my sleeves with ribbons rare,
And lace my bodice blue.
For why, she cries, sit still and weep,
While others dance and play?
Alas! I scarce can go or creep,
While Lubin is away.
’Tis sad to think the days are gone,
When those we love were near;
I sit upon this mossy stone,
And sigh when none can hear.
And while I spin my flaxen thread,
And sing my simple lay,
The village seems asleep, or dead,
Now Lubin is away.
The anguish of my bursting heart
Till now my tongue hath ne’er betray’d,
Despair at length reveals the smart
No time can cure, no hope can aid.
My sorrows verging to the grave,
No more shall pain thy gentle breast;
Think, death gives freedom to the slave,
Nor mourn for me when I’m at rest.
Yet if at eve you chance to stray
Where peaceful sleep the silent dead,
Give to your soft compassion way,
Nor check the tear by pity shed.
Where’er the precious drop may fall,
I ne’er can know, I ne’er can see;
And if sad thoughts my fate recall,
A sigh may rise, unheard by me.
Far from this throbbing bosom haste,
Ye doubts and fears, that lay it waste;
Dear anxious days of pleasing pain
Fly, never to return again.
But, ah! return ye smiling hours,
By careless fancy crown’d with flowers;
Come, fairy joys, and wishes gay,
And dance in sportive rounds away.
So shall the moments gaily glide
O’er varying life’s tumultuous tide;
Nor sad regrets disturb their course,
To calm oblivion’s peaceful source.
When hollow bursts the rushing wind,
And heavy beats the shower,
This anxious, aching bosom finds
No comfort in its power.
For ah, my love! it little knows
What thy hard fate may be;
What bitter storm of fortune blows,
What tempests trouble thee.
A wayward fate hath twin’d the thread
On which our days depend,
And darkling in the checker’d shade,
She draws it to an end.
But whatsoe’er may be thy doom,
The lot is cast for me;
Or in the world, or in the tomb,
My heart is fix’d on thee.
To wander alone when the moon faintly beaming
With glimmering lustre darts through the dim shade,
Where owls seek for covert, and night birds complaining,
Add sound to the horrors that darken the glade.
’Tis not for the happy, come daughter of sorrow,
’Tis here thy sad thoughts are embalm’d in thy tears,
Where lost in the past, nor regarding to-morrow,
There’s nothing for hopes, there’s nothing for fears.