Charles Swain (poet)

Charles Swain (4 January 1801 – 22 September 1874) was an English poet and engraver, born in Manchester. He was honorary professor of poetry at the Manchester Royal Institution, and in 1856 was granted a civil list pension. His friends included Robert Southey. Swain's epitaph for John Horsefield is noted by English Heritage as an element of their rationale for listing Horsefield's tomb as a Grade II monument.

Quotes

• Time to me this truth has taught
    ('Tis a treasure worth revealing),
  More offend from want of thought,
    Than from any want of feeling.
  • "Want of Thought", quoted in Notes and Queries, 5th s., vol. 4 (11 December 1875), p. 464

• Tripping down the field-path,
    Early in the morn,
  There I met my own love
    'Midst the golden corn;
  Autumn winds were blowing,
    As in frolic chase,
  All her silken ringlets
    Backward from her face;
  Little time for speaking
    Had she, for the wind,
  Bonnet, scarf, or ribbon,
    Ever swept behind.
  Still some sweet improvement
    In her beauty shone;
  Every graceful movement
    Won me,—one by one! [...]
  Little time for wooing
    Had we, for the wind
  Still kept on undoing
    What we sought to bind. [...]
  Still I see the field-path;—
    Would that I could see
  Her whose graceful beauty
    Lost is now to me!
  • "Tripping Down the Field Path", English Melodies (1849)