It was while researching poet Anne Finch that I came across the main character of Rain Dodging, Mary of Modena,
During her lifetime, Anne Finch received limited recognition as a poet: As a woman, few took her work seriously. However, in the twentieth century, Finch’s work was rediscovered. In Wordsworth’s famous 1815 essay, Lyrical Ballads, he writes that ‘excepting the Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Winchilsea and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature.’
Nocturnal Reverie has been reprinted in poetry collections but not much effort has been made to explore her songful writing. Her poems have never been edited or labeled, though her poems rivaled the best masters. Nocturnal Reverie is worthy of Wordsworth’s praise. Some consider the poem to be a precursor to the romantic movement. The poem is serene, its imagery rich, a natural scene that is inviting and relaxing. The narrator speaks to a nighttime wonderland, saddened that dawn is coming and she must return to the harsh reality of the world.
A sampling of: A Nocturnal Reverie
In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined;
And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl’s delight . . .
. . . When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbind, and the bramble-rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes
When scatter’d glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties, watch their hour to shine . . .
. . . Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear:
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something, too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O’er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in th’ inferior world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,
Till morning breaks, and all’s confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamors are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, was born in 1661. Her father died when Finch was only five months old, but he made arrangements for all of his children’s equal education. Pretty remarkable,
Current home of Andrew Lloyd Webber
Finch was a member of Charles II’s court at the age of twenty-one, when she became a maid of honor to Mary of Modena, wife of the Duke of York. She befriended other young women with literary interests and Finch began to write poetry. When she married Heneage Finch, she left her official position, as was the rule. The marriage was happy for both. The Finches’ support of King James II and their Stuart sympathies cost Colonel Finch his position when James was deposed in 1688. Because Finch refused to compromise his beliefs and give his support to William and Mary, he had difficulty finding a new job. Colonel Finch’s nephew encouraged the couple to live on the family estate in Eastwell, where they spent the next twenty-five years. The Colonel became the Earl of Winchilsea in 1712, after the unexpected death of his nephew.
Taking the pseudonym Ardelia, Anne wrote poetry about her beloved husband. She expressed personal feelings in her poetry, a diary through which she related personal experiences, feelings, religious convictions, and observations about the world around her. At the same time, her work reflects knowledge of and respect for seventeenth-century poetry and its conventions—biblical allusions, metaphysical tendencies in imagery and verse that combines the spiritual and the logical. Because of her early position in the court and her husband’s political career, Finch retained an interest in the throne, religion, and the politics of the day. Her early poetry reflects on the days she enjoyed in court. Later poetry reveals a mature understanding of the gravity of the politics surrounding the throne and the seriousness of taking a stand for one’s loyalties. After enduring failing health for a number of years, Finch died in 1720. She was buried in Eastwell.
I was fortunate to spend a day there, exploring:”If you want to know what happened read the book.”
Rain Dodging: A Scholar’s Romp though Britain
in Search of a Stuart Queen.
She Writes Press, Fall 2023
