The Warrior & Other Poems: 'Unknown the dark deceiver's thought''

By Amelia Opie

Amelia Alderson, an only child, was born on the 12th November 1769 in Norwich, England.

After the death of her mother on New Year’s Eve 1784 she became her father's housekeeper and hostess.

The young Amelia was energetic, attractive, and an admirer of fashion. She spent much of her youth writing poetry and plays and putting on local amateur theatricals. At 18 she had published anonymously ‘The Dangers of Coquetry’.

Amelia married in the spring of 1798 to the artist John Opie at the Church of St Marylebone, in Westminster, and together they lived in Berners Street where Amelia was already living.

Her next novel in 1801 ‘Father and Daughter’, was very popular even though it dealt with such themes as illegitimacy, a socially difficult subject for its times. From this point on published works were far more regular. The following year her volume ‘Poems’ appeared and was again very popular. Novels continued to flow and she never once abandoned her social activism and her call for better treatment of women and the dispossessed in her works. She was also keenly involved in a love of society and its attendant frills.

Encouraged by her husband to write more she published Adeline Mowbray in 1804, an exploration of women's education, marriage, and the abolition of slavery.

Her husband died in 1807 and she paused from writing for a few years before resuming with further novels and poems. Of particular interest was her short poem ‘The Black Man's Lament’ in 1826. Her life now was in the main spent travelling and working for charities and against slavery. She even helped create a Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in Norwich which organised a parliamentary petition of 187,000 names of which hers was the first name.

After a visit to Cromer, a seaside resort on the North Norfolk coast, she caught a chill and retired to her bedroom.

Amelia Opie died on the 2nd December 1853 in Norwich. She was 84.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Jun 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803549514

Book preview

The Warrior’s Return & Other Poems by Amelia Opie

Amelia Alderson, an only child, was born on the 12th November 1769 in Norwich, England.

After the death of her mother on New Year’s Eve 1784 she became her father's housekeeper and hostess.

The young Amelia was energetic, attractive, and an admirer of fashion.  She spent much of her youth writing poetry and plays and putting on local amateur theatricals.  At 18 she had published anonymously ‘The Dangers of Coquetry’.

Amelia married in the spring of 1798 to the artist John Opie at the Church of St Marylebone, in Westminster, and together they lived in Berners Street where Amelia was already living.

Her next novel in 1801 ‘Father and Daughter’, was very popular even though it dealt with such themes as illegitimacy, a socially difficult subject for its times.  From this point on published works were far more regular.  The following year her volume ‘Poems’ appeared and was again very popular.  Novels continued to flow and she never once abandoned her social activism and her call for better treatment of women and the dispossessed in her works.  She was also keenly involved in a love of society and its attendant frills.

Encouraged by her husband to write more she published Adeline Mowbray in 1804, an exploration of women's education, marriage, and the abolition of slavery.

Her husband died in 1807 and she paused from writing for a few years before resuming with further novels and poems.  Of particular interest was her short poem ‘The Black Man's Lament’ in 1826.  Her life now was in the main spent travelling and working for charities and against slavery.  She even helped create a Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in Norwich which organised a parliamentary petition of 187,000 names of which hers was the first name.

After a visit to Cromer, a seaside resort on the North Norfolk coast, she caught a chill and retired to her bedroom.

Amelia Opie died on the 2nd December 1853 in Norwich.  She was 84.

Index of Contents

The Warrior's Return

Julia, or The Convent of St. Claire; a Tale Founded on Fact

The Mad Wanderer, A Ballad

Lines written in 1799

Song. I Am Wearing Away Like the Snow in the Sun

To Lorenzo

Ode to Borrowdale in Cumberland

The Lucayan's Song

Song. Was It For This I Dearly Loved Thee

Ballad, Founded on Fact

Song. Yes, Thou Art Changed

Stanzas to Cynthio

The Origin of the Sail

Sonnet on the Approach of Autumn

To Laura

Love Elegy, To Laura

Love Elegy, To Henry

To Henry

To Henry

Lines on the Opening of a Spring Campaign

Lines on the Place de la Concorde at Paris

The Moon and the Comet, A Fable

To Lothario

To Henry

To Anna

Remembrance

Secret Love

To a Maniac

Lines on Constantinople

Song. While many a Fond

To Henry

Song. Ask Not, Whence Springs

Song. Yes...Though We've Loved

Song. How Fondly I Gaze

Song. Where Dost Thou Bide

Song. Low Hung the Dark Clouds

Song. You Ask Why These Mountains

THE WARRIOR'S RETURN

Sie Walter returned from the far Holy Land,

And a blood-tinctured falchion he bore;

But such precious blood as now darkened his sword

Had never distained it before.

Fast fluttered his heart as his own castle towers

He saw on the mountain's green height;

My wife, and my son! he exclaimed, while his tears

Obscured for some moments his sight.

For terror now whispered, the wife he had left

Full fifteen long twelvemonths before,

The child he had claspt in his farewel embrace,

Might both,