We are steadily building a database of Poets for you to listen to and would be interested to hear from you if you have suggestions for others we might include in the site. You can let us know by visiting our Contact Us page. All of the poems on this website have been narrated by Gerald Cox, you can find out more about Gerald on the About Us page.

The menu below helps you find the poet you are looking for alphabetically by surname.

Helen Maria Williams

We currently have one poem by Helen Maria Williams. You can listen to the poem and also read it below.

Read and listen to A Song

No riches from his scanty store

My lover could impart;

He gave a boon I valued more —

He gave me all his heart!

 

His soul sincere, his generous worth,

Might well this bosom move;

And when I asked for bliss on earth,

I only meant his love.

 

But now for me, in search of gain

From shore to shore he flies;

Why wander riches to obtain,

When love is all I prize?

 

The frugal meal, the lowly cot

If blest my love with thee!

That simple fare, that humble lot,

Were more than wealth to me.

 

While he the dangerous ocean braves,

My tears but vainly flow:

Is pity in the faithless waves

To which I pour my woe?

 

The night is dark, the waters deep,

Yet soft the billows roll;

Alas! at every breeze I weep —

The storm is in my soul.

Helen Maria Williams - 1759 - 1827

Was a British novelist, poet, and translator of French-language works. A religious dissenter, she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution; she was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror, but nonetheless spent much of the rest of her life in France.

A controversial figure in her own time, the young Williams was favourably portrayed in a 1787 poem by William Wordsworth, but (especially at the height of the French Revolution) she was portrayed by other writers as irresponsibly politically radical and even as sexually wanton.

More on Wikipedia