Charlotte Smith compares the solace and healing power of nature to the solace she finds in poetry in “Sonnet XXXVI.” In the first quatrain, Smith introduces the “lone wanderer” who “rests for a moment” by picking flowers. In the second quatrain, she reveals that “the sense of sorrow he awhile may lose; / So have I sought thy flowers, fair Poesy!” Interestingly, she identifies herself with the male wanderer: he finds escape from sorrow in nature and she finds escape in poetry. The alliteration and assonance in the first two quatrains establishes her link to the wanderer and poetry’s link to nature. “W” sounds are repeated often: “wanderer,” “way,” “wild,” “woodbine,” “flowers,” “weaving,” “wreaths,” “sorrow,” and “awhile.” “S” sounds are repeated: “sense of sorrow… may lose / So have I sought … Poesy!” “Ee” sounds are repeated: “weaving,” “wreaths,” “beneath,” “tree,” and “Poesy.” Yet in the last quatrain, her tone is darker and foreboding. Her life has grown “unhappy,” and “Hope reclines upon the tomb.” She uses heavy words like “darker,” “evil,” “sickening,” “tomb,” and “spectre,” to emphasize her unhappiness. Instead of looking to poetry or nature for escape, she looks to death: “Hope… / points my wishes to that tranquil shore.” Death is her only option for lasting tranquility. Just like the solace the wanderer feels from the flowers only lasts “awhile,” she knows her tranquility in poetry is fleeting. The poem ends bleakly.
I like the way you've broken up the quatrains and picked out features like the alliteration. It gives a clearer insight into why she's structured the poem the way she has and how it links into the general theme of the course. We've asked if poetry can save the earth, but here Smith looks for, then loses all hope in both nature and poetry. It certainly is a bleak perspective.
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