Riddle 158.
An unfortunate maid,
I by love was betray’d,
And wasted and pined by my grief;
To deep solitudes then,
Of rock, mountain and glen,
From the world I retired for relief.
Yet there by the sound
Of my voice I am found,
Though no footstep betrays where I tread,
The poet and lover,
My haunts to discover,
Still leave at the dawn their soft bed.
If the poet sublime
Address me in rime,
In rime I support conversation;
To the lover’s fond moan
I return groan for groan,
And by sympathy give consolation.
Though I’m apt, ‘t is averr’d,
To love the last word,
Nor can I pretend ‘t is a fiction,
I shall ne’er be so rude
On your talk to intrude
With anything like contradiction.
The fair damsels of old
By their mothers were told,
That maids should be seen and not heard;
The reverse is my case,
For you’ll ne’er see my face,
To my voice all my charms are transferr’d.
- Anna Letitia Barbauld
