WRITTEN ON THE SEA SHORE (1784) CHARLOTTE SMITH (1749–1806) Sonnet xii. Written on the Sea Shore. – October, 1784 On some rude fragment of the rocky shore          Where on the fractur’d cliff, the billows break,          Musing, my solitary seat I take, And listen to the deep and solemn roar. O’er the dark waves the winds tempestuous howl;          The screaming sea-bird quits the troubled sea:          But the wild gloomy scene has charms for me, And suits the mournful temper of my soul. Already shipwreck’d by the storms of Fate,          Like the poor mariner methinks I stand,          Cast on a rock; who sees the distant land From whence no succour comes – or comes too late. Faint and more faint are heard his feeble cries, ’Till in the rising tide, the exhausted sufferer dies. [SOURCE: Charlotte Smith, Elegiac Sonnets, 6th edn (London: T. Cadell, 1792)] Return to Gothic Poetry Return to Index of Gothic Readings