Poetic Sketches A Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry — Edition Insights

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Authors: Gent, Thomas, 1780- Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 14,259

Reading time 62 min

Text sections 2

The catalog record for Poetic Sketches A Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry — Edition Insights provides practical reading context through 14,259 words, 1 hr 2 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 23.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #11983

Thomas Gent's 1808 collection of occasional verse, mixing sonnets, songs, and elegies with public tributes to Nelson, Washington, and Toussaint L'Ouverture, and private meditations on love, loss, and rural escape.

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Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
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File: pg11983

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ng had her heart with Henry's been entwin'd And love's soft voice had wak'd the sacred blaze Of Hymen's altar; while, with him combin'd, His cherub train prepar'd the torch to raise:

When, lo! his standard raging war uprear'd, And honor call'd her Henry from her charms. He fought, but ah! torn, mangled, blood-besmear'd, Fell, nobly fell, amid his conquering arms!

In her sad bosom, a tumultuous world Of hopes and fears on his dear memory spread; For fate had not the clouded roll unfurl'd, Nor yet with baleful hemlock crown'd her head.

Reflection, oft to sad remembrace brought The well-known spot, where they so oft had stray'd; While fond affection ten-fold ardor caught. And smiling innocence around them play'd.

But these were past! and now the distant bell (For deep and pensive thought had held her there) Toll'd midnight out, with long-resounding knell, While dismal echoes quiver'd in the air.

Again 'twas silence--when from out the gloom, She saw, with awe-struck eye, a phantom glide: Twas Henry's form!--what pencil shall presume To paint her horror!--HENRY AS HE DIED!

Enervate, long she stood--a sculptur'd dread, 'Till waking sense dissolv'd amazement's chain; Then home, with timid haste, distracted fled, And sunk in dreadful agony of pain.

Not the deep sigh, which madden'd Sappho gave, When from Leucate's craggy height she sprung, Could equal that which gave her to the grave, The last sad sound that echoed from her tongue.

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. CHARLOTTE SMITH.

Sweet songstress! whom the melancholy Muse With more than fondness lov'd, for thee she strung The lyre, on which herself enraptur'd hung, And bade thee through the world its sweets diffuse. Oft hath my childhood's tributary tear Paid homage to the sad, harmonious strain, That told, alas, too true, the grief and pain, Which thy afflicted mind was doom'd to bear. Rest, sainted spirit! from a life of woe, And tho' no friendly hand on thee bestow The stately marble, or emblazon'd name, To tell a thoughtless world who sleeps below; Yet o'er thy narrow bed a wreath shall blow, Deriving vigour from the breath of fame.

ON THE BOSOM OF CHLOE, WHILE SLEEPING.

Come away, come away, little fly! Don't disturb the sweet calm of love's nest: If you do, I protest you shall die, And your tomb be that beautiful breast.

Don't tickle the girl in her sleep, Don't cause so much beauty to sigh; If she frown, all the Graces will weep; If she weep, half the Graces will die.

Pretty fly! do not tickle her so; How delighted to teaze her you seem; Titillation is dangerous, I know, And may cause the dear creature to dream.

She may dream of some horrible brute, Of some genii, or fairy-built spot; Or perhaps the prohibited fruit, Or perhaps of--I cannot tell what.

Now she 'wakes! steal a kiss and begone; Life is precious; away, little fly! Should your rudeness provoke her to scorn, You'll meet death from the glance of her eye.

Were I ask'd by fair Chloe to say How I felt, as the flutt'rer I chid; I should own, as I drove it away, I wish'd to be there in it's stead.

When the rough storm roars round the peasant's cot, And bursting thunders roll their awful din; While shrieks the frighted night bird o'er the spot, Oh! what serenity remains within! For there Contentment, Health, and Peace abide, And pillow'd age, with calm eye fix'd above; Labor's bold son, his blithe and blooming bride, And lisping innocence, and filial love. To such a scene let proud Ambition turn, Whose aching breast conceals it's secret woe; Then shall his fireful spirit melt, and mourn The mild enjoyments it can never know; Then shall he feel the littleness of state, And sigh that Fortune e'er had made him great.

WRITTEN ON THE SIXTH OF SEPTEMBER.

Ill-Fated hour! oft as thy annual reign Leads on th'autumnal tide, my pinion'd joys Fade with the glories of the fading year; "Remembrance 'wakes with all her busy train," And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh O'er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death, And wet with many a tributary tear!

Eight times has each successive season sway'd The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime Since My Loved ****** died! but why, ah! why Should melancholy cloud my early years? Religion spurns earth's visionary scene, Philosophy revolts at misery's chain: Just Heaven recall'd it's own, the pilgrim call'd From human woes, from sorrow's rankling worm; Shall frailty then prevail?

Oh! be it mine To curb the sigh which bursts o'er Heaven's decree; To tread the path of rectitude--that when Life's dying ray shall glimmer in the frame, That latest breath I may in peace resign, "Firm in the faith of seeing thee and God."

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Thomas Gent's Poetic Sketches (second edition, 1808) opens with a self-deprecating epigraph—"In mercy spare me when I do my best, / To make as much waste paper as the rest"—that signals the author's awareness of his place in a crowded literary marketplace. The collection moves between public tribute and private sentiment, with poems addressed to Lord Nelson, General Washington, and Toussaint L'Ouverture sitting alongside sonnets to abstract virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity) and intimate lyrics to Chloe, Lydia, and Jenny. The contents page marks new pieces with asterisks, suggesting the author revised and expanded the volume after its first appearance.

Dedication and the Poet's Posture

The volume is inscribed to George Canning, then Foreign Secretary, whom Gent praises as "not less distinguished for his attainments as a scholar, than for his talents as a statesman." This dedication places the poet in a client relationship to political power, a stance reinforced by the opening address "To the Reviewers," where Gent styles himself a "pensive Pilgrim, worn with base turmoils, / Plebian cares, and mercenary toils." The self-portrait is deliberate: a poet who writes from necessity, not leisure, and who seeks approval from the arbiters of taste. The epigraph's wry plea for mercy undercuts this earnestness, creating a tension between deference and self-mockery that runs through the collection.

Public Elegy and National Mourning

Several poems commemorate military and political figures. "On the Death of Lord Nelson" and "The Recall of the Hero" treat Nelson as an instrument of divine vengeance: "The thunders of avenging heaven / To Nelson's chosen hand were given." The sonnet on Toussaint L'Ouverture and the lines on General Washington extend this elegiac mode beyond Britain, though the excerpts do not reveal Gent's specific treatment of these figures. The poem on the Naval Asylum addresses the children of fallen sailors as "Sons of Renown! ye heirs of matchless fame," linking personal loss to national gratitude. These public pieces rely on conventional personifications (Glory, Charity) and regular iambic meter, adhering to the period's norms for occasional verse.

Pastoral Retreat and Urban Complaint

"Lines, written in Hornsey Wood" offers a satirical contrast to the solemn elegies. Gent addresses those who "pine, in London smoke immur'd" and asks, "Why leave ye not your smoke-obstructed holes / With wholesome air to cheer your sickly souls?" The poem catalogues city ailments—"Colds, asthmas, rheumatisms, coughs, blue-devils"—and presents Hornsey as a romantic cure where "health's bright goddess 'wakes the breeze." This movement between urban confinement and rural escape recurs in the collection: the sonnet "Morning" and the lines "written on the sixth of September" likely develop similar contrasts. The pastoral scenes are idealized, with "unfading blossoms" and "nectar'd streams," but the satirical edge in the Hornsey poem suggests Gent could vary his tone.

Love, Loss, and the Consolations of Verse

Gent's love poems range from the playful ("To a Fly on the Bosom of Chloe, while sleeping") to the mournful ("Rosa's Grave"). In the latter, the speaker asks to be laid where his beloved lies, with "love" personified as a mourner shedding "his tenderest tear of pity." The poem ends with a hope of reunion at "the Throne of Peace." "Lines, to the Memory of a Lady" praises its subject as "the liberal friend of human kind" and predicts that "the widow weep that thou art gone." These elegies share a vocabulary of tears, tombs, and sainted shades, but they also gesture toward social conscience: the lady is remembered for feeding unprotected babes. The sonnet "To a Lyre" and the "Invocation to Sleep" suggest poetry itself is a solace for grief.

Gent's Poetic Sketches rewards attention to its arrangement: the alternation of public and private, the shifts between satire and sentiment, and the recurring images of wreaths, tombs, and rural landscapes. Readers may trace how the poet negotiates his dual roles as plebeian pilgrim and aspiring laureate. The asterisked additions hint at a writer refining his craft between editions, and the self-deprecating epigraph invites us to read with both sympathy and critical distance.

Holding Gent’s little book, I recalled evenings on my grandmother’s porch, her voice drifting over lines about rural peace. The way his elegies bow to public grief without losing private warmth reminded me of how Sappho’s fragments sing through brokenness—loss and tenderness braided close. That same hush returns in Sappho: A New Rendering — Text and Context, where absence feels like company. Old pages, old ache, still breathing.