This edition of Robert Southey's early poetry seeks to restore Southey the poet to his place at the centre of late 18th and early 19th century British literary culture. This collection of his poetical works critically reassesses Southey's epics and romances.

Lynda Pratt,

Introduction -- Selected Shorter Poems794-1810 -- 1 To the Nettle (1794) -- 2 Botany-Bay Eclogue. Elinor (1794) -- 3 The Retrospect (1795) -- 4 Sonnet from Poems (1795) -- 4.1 The Faded Flower -- 5 To the Exiled Patriots (1795) -- 6 Elegy. Written in May, 1794 (1796) -- 7 Mortality (1796) -- 8 Othryades, a Mono-Drama (1796) -- 9 Sonnet ('Pleasant it is awhile to linger here') (1796) -- 10 Sonnet ('As one, whom the dark phantoms of the night') (1796) -- 11 The Death of Joshua (1796) -- 12 To a Frog (1796) -- 13 Sonnet ('Evening, as musing on my lonely way') (1796) -- 14 Sonnet ('With wayworn feet a pilgrim woe-begone') (1796) -- 15 To Mary Wollstonecraft (1797) -- 16 The Triumph of Woman (1797) -- 17 Poems on the Slave Trade (1797) -- 17.1 Sonnet ('Hold your mad hands! for ever on the plain') -- 17.2 Sonnet ('Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair') -- 17.3 Sonnet ('Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops run') -- 17.4 Sonnet (''Tis night; the mercenary tyrants sleep') -- 17.5 Sonnet ('Did then the bold Slave rear at last the Sword') -- 17.6 Sonnet ('High in the air expos'd the Slave is hung') -- 18 To the Genius of Africa (1797) -- 19 To my own miniature picture, taken at two years of age (1797) -- 20 The Pauper's Funeral (1797) -- 21 Ode written on the First of January, 1794 (1797) -- 22 Inscriptions (1797) -- 22.1 For a Tablet at Godstow Nunnery -- 22.2 For a Column at Newbury -- 22.3 For a Cavern that overlooks the River Avon -- 22.4 For the Apartment in Chepstow-Castle where Henry Marten the Regicide was imprisoned thirty years -- 22.5 For a Monument at Silbury-Hill -- 22.6 For a Monument in the New Forest -- 22.7 For a Tablet on the Banks of a Stream -- 22.8 For the Cenotaph at Ermenonville -- 23 Birth-Day Odes (1797) -- 23.1 1793 -- 23.2 1796 -- 24 Botany-Bay Eclogues (1797) -- 24.1 Elinor -- 24.2 Humphrey and William -- 24.3 John, Samuel, and Richard -- 24.4 Frederic -- 25 Sonnets from Poems 1797 (1797) -- 25.1 'Go Valentine and tell that lovely maid' -- 25.2 'Think Valentine, as speeding on thy way' -- 25.3 'Not to thee Bedford mournful is the tale' -- 25.4 'What tho' no sculptur'd monument proclaim' -- 25.5 'Hard by the road, where on that little mound' -- 25.6 To a Brook Near the Village of Corston -- 25.7 To the Evening Rainbow -- 25.8 'With many a weary step, at length I gain' -- 25.9 'Fair is the rising morn when o'er the sky' -- 25.10 'How darkly o'er yon far-off mountain frowns' -- 26 Sappho (1797) -- 27 Ode written on the First of December 1793 (1797) -- 28 Written on Sunday Morning (1797) -- 29 On the Death of a Favourite Old Spaniel (1797) -- 30 To Contemplation (1797) -- 31 To Horror (1797) -- 32 The Soldier's Wife. Dactylics (1797) -- 33 The Widow. Sapphics (1797) -- 34 To the Chapel Bell (1797) -- 35 The Race of Banquo (1797) -- 36 Musings on a Landscape of Gaspar Poussin (1797) -- 37 Mary (1797) -- 38 Donica (1797) -- 39 Rudiger (1797) -- 40 Hymn to the Penates (1797) -- 41 Sonnet (Lonely my way, when last along this road) (1797) -- 42 Retrospective musings, written January 15, 1797 (1797) -- 43 Lines written on Monte Salgueiro (1797) -- 44 Sonnet ('Another mountain yet! I thought this brow') (1797) -- 45 Lines upon the Widow of Villa Franca (1797) -- 46 Lines upon Christmas Day (1797) -- 47 Inscription for a Monument, where Juan de Padilla suffered death (1797) -- 48 Inscription for a Column at Truxillo (1797) -- 49 Ode ('When at morn, the muleteer') (1797) -- 50 Musings after visiting the Convent of Arrabida (1797) -- 51 Sonnet ('Cheerless my road, and long and lone the way') (1797) -- 52 To Night (1797) -- 53 Aristodemus, a monodrama (1797) -- 54 Hannah, a Plaintive Tale (1797) -- 55 To A. S. Cottle, from Robert Southey (1797) -- 56 Botany-Bay Eclogue. Edward and Susan (1798) -- 57 On the Settlement of Sierra Leona (1798) -- 58 Sonnet. The Bee (1798) -- 59 Inscription. For a Column in Smithfield where Wat Tyler was killed (1798) -- 60 The Ring (1798) -- 61 Sonnet ('Smile on sweet infant!') (1798) -- 62 St David's Day (1798) -- 63 March the First (1798) -- 64 Scriptural Ode. Wednesday, March 7,8 the Day appointed for a Fast (1798) -- 65 The Ides of March. March 15 (1798) -- 66 Lord William (1798) -- 67 March 18th. King Edward the Martyr, murdered at Corfe. Inscription for a Monument at Corfe Castle (1798) -- 68 Sonnet. To Joseph Gerald, 1794 (1798) -- 69 Inscription for a Monument at Merida (1798) -- 70 The Lover's Rock (1798) -- 71 Jasper (1798) -- 72 St Patrick's Purgatory (1798) -- 73 The Remembrance of Youth is a Sigh. From the Proverbs of Ali (1798) -- 74 King John Crowned. Epitaph (1798) -- 75 May 29 - Ode (1798) -- 76 Lines. On leaving a Place of Residence (1798) -- 77 The Advantages of a Remonstrance (1798) -- 78 A War-Poem. (On the Late Mr. Blythe, a Midshipman on board The Mars) (1798) -- 79 The Origin of the Rose (1798) -- 80 Lines to a Stream (1798) -- 81 The Complaints of the Poor (1798) -- 82 The Idiot. The circumstances related in the following ballad happened some years since in Herefordshire (1798) -- 83 The Emblem (1798) -- 84 Inscription for Sherwood Forest (1798) -- 85 The System of Coercion. A Sonnet from Scripture (1798) -- 86 July Thirteenth. Charlotte Corde executed for putting Marat to death (1798) -- 87 Saul and His Asses (1798) -- 88 The Negro Child. Sonnet (1798) -- 89 Jehosophat. Sonnet (1798) -- 90 Inscription for a Monument where the Battle of Barnet was fought (1798) -- 91 Ode. The Spanish Armada (1798) -- 92 Ode. The Martins (1798) -- 93 The Battle of Blenheim (1798) -- 94 Sonnet. The Plagues of Egypt - Their Cause and Cure (1798) -- 95 Lucretia. A Monodrama (1798) -- 96 The Massacre of St Bartholomew (1798) -- 97 Ode. The Death of Wallace (1798) -- 98 The Contrast (1798) -- 99 Stanzas ('Sweet to the morning traveller') (1798) -- 100 Inscription. For Cardiff Castle, where Robert of Normandy was confined by his brother Henry the First (1798) -- 101 King Henry and the Hermit of Dreux. The following poem is founded on a circumstance related in Mezeray (1798) -- 102 Night (1798) -- 103 The Battle of Bosworth. An Eclogue (1798) -- 104 To a Friend (1798) -- 105 Inscription. For the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey (1798) -- 106 Simile. The Ivy'd Castle (1798) -- 107 Henry, the Hermit (1798) -- 108 Lines. Written on a view of Malvern Hills (1798) -- 109 Ode ('Man hath a weary pilgrimage') (1798) -- 110 Bishop Bruno (1798) -- 111 Sonnet ('Beware a speedy friend, th' Arabian said) (1798) -- 112 The Well of St Keyne (1798) -- 113 Lines on visiting Lanthony Abbey (1798) -- 114 Inscription for a Tablet at Penshurst, the birthplace of Sir Philip Sidney (1798) -- 115 Sonnet. On seeing a Vessel leave the Port (1798) -- 116 The Holly-Tree; an Emblem (1798) -- 117 Lines, written amid the Ruins of Abergavenny Castle (1798) -- 118 Inscription for a Monument in the Vale of Ewias (1798) -- 119 Epitaph on Algernon Sidney (1798) -- 120 Sonnet to a Friend (1798) -- 121 Ode ('In vain the trav'ller seeks Aberffraw's tow'rs') (1798) -- 122 To Joseph Cottle (1798) -- 123 Sonnet - To a Goose (1799) -- 124 History (1799) -- 125 The Old Man's Comforts, and how he procured them (1799) -- 126 Ode ('Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul') (1799) -- 127 St Romuald (1799) -- 128 The Circumstances related in the following lines happened at the evacuation of Toulon (1799) -- 129 Epitaph. On Joseph Gerald (1799) -- 130 To a Friend (1799) -- 131 Cortez. History is Philosophy, teaching by example (1799) -- 132 Inscription under an Oak (1799) -- 133 The Filbert (1799) -- 134 Metrical Letter (1799) -- 135 The Cross Roads (1799) -- 136 The Sailor who had served in the Slave Trade (…