Vignettes in Verse

Matilda Betham would keep a journal in wings: some birds rise into sunlight, others falter through storms, and one is struck down mid-flight. “This is Fortune—This is all,” she says—but is it?

In this early nineteenth-century collection, days and feelings take flight through changing skies: a poor artisan finds one hour of refuge in love, Lucy is praised for duty rather than beauty, and Edmund returns from wandering with thoughts of home. Elsewhere, love must contend with separation, a daughter addresses her mother on Valentine’s Day, and a Spanish lady places freedom above her own longing. Betham’s poems move from tender confidences to sudden grief and patriotic resolve, attending to the small turns of feeling that can alter a life. When fortune sends its next storm, what will these voices hold on to?

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