By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Sonnet on Being Cautioned against Walking on a Headland’ is that rarest of things: a Gothic sonnet. This needn’t surprise when we bear in mind that the sonnet’s author, Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806), was associated with English Romanticism and was also a key figure in the revival of the English sonnet.
Sonnet on Being Cautioned against Walking on a Headland
Is there a solitary wretch who hies
To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;