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Appendix E - Attributed poems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2020

Jane Austen
Edited by
Janet Todd  and
Linda Bree
Janet Todd
Affiliation:
Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge and University of Aberdeen
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Summary

‘Sigh Lady Sigh’

The poem is written in pencil, in a hand similar in some respects to that of Jane Austen, across two pages of Ann Murry, Mentoria: or, The Young Lady's Instructor (1778, second edn 1780), including the title page. The lines seem to be original, but authorship is impossible to verify. The book was owned by Jane Austen in the 1790s and given by her to Anna Lefroy in 1801. It is now owned by the Jane Austen Memorial Trust at Chawton Cottage. See Introduction, p. cxxvii.

Sigh Lady sigh, hide not the tear thats stealing

Down thy young face now so pale & cheerless

Let not thy heart be blighted by the feeling

That presses on thy soul, of utter loneliness.

In sighs supprest & grief that's [ever?] weeping

Beats slow & mournfully [a mourning?] heart

A heart oer which decay & death are creeping

In which no sunshine can a gleam impart.

Thou art not desolate, tho’ left forsaken

By one in whom thy very soul was bound

Let Natures voice thy dreary heart awaken

Oh listen to the melodies around.

For Summer her pure golden tress is flinging

On woods & glades & silent gliding streams

With joy the very air around is ringing

Oh rouse thee from those mournful mournful dreams.

Go forth let not that voice in vain be calling

Join thy hearts voice to that which fills the air

For he who een a sparrow saves from falling

Makes thee an object of peculiar care.

‘On the Universities’

The manuscript is held in the HenryW. and Albert A. Berg Collection at theNewYork Public Library and is in JA's hand.However, shemust simply have copied out the poem, which appears in many collected volumes of verse and epigrams including in the ‘Epigrams’ section of the highly popular Elegant Extracts: or Useful and Entertaining Pieces of Poetry, selected for the Improvement of Youth (London: Charles Dilly, c.1789[?] and subsequent editions). See Introduction, pp. cxxvi–cxxvii.

No wonder that Oxford and Cambridge profound

In Learning and Science so greatly abound

Since some carry thither a little each day

and we meet with so few who bring any away.

Type
Chapter
Information
Later Manuscripts , pp. 577 - 578
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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