To IndifferenceAnn Yearsley

INDIFFERENCE come! thy torpid juices shed On my keen sense: plunge deep my wounded heart, In thickest apathy, till it congeal, Or mix with thee incorp'rate. Come, thou foe To sharp sensation, in thy cold embrace A death-like slumber shall a respite give To my long restless soul, tost on extreme, From bliss to pointed woe. Oh, gentle Pow'r, Dear substitute of Patience! thou canst ease The Soldier's toil, the gloomy Captive's chain, The Lover's anguish, and the Miser's fear.

Proud Beauty will not own thee! Her loud boast Is VlRTUE--while thy chilling breath alone Blows o'er her soul. bidding her passions sleep. Mistaken Cause, the frozen Fair denies Thy saving influence. VIRTUE never lives, But in the bosom, struggling with its wound: There she supports the conflict, there augments The pang of hopeless Love, the senseless stab Of gaudy Ign'rance, and more deeply drives The poison'd dart, hurl'd by the long-lov'd friend; Then pants with painful victory. Bear me hence, Thou antidote to pain! thy real worth Mortal can never know. What's the vain boast Of Sensibility but to be wretched? In her best transports lives a latent sting, Which wounds as they expire. On her high heights Our souls can never sit; the point so nice, We quick fly off-secure, but in descent.

To SENSIBILITY, what is not bliss Is woe. No placid medium's ever held Beneath her torrid line, when straining high The fibres of the soul. Of Pain, or Joy, She gives too large a share; but thou, more kind, Wrapp'st up the heart from both, and bidd'st it rest In ever-wish'd-for ease. By all the pow'rs Which move within the mind for diff'rent ends, I'd rather lose myself with thee and share Thine happy indolence, for one short hour, Than live of Sensibility the tool For endless ages. Oh! her points have pierc'd My soul, till, like a sponge, it drinks up woe.

Then leave me, Sensibility! be gone, Thou chequer'd angel! Seek the soul refin'd: I hate thee! and thy long progressive brood Of joys and mis'ries. Soft Indiff'rence, come! In this low cottage thou shalt be my guest, Till Death shuts out the hour: here down I'll sink With thee upon my couch of homely rush, Which fading forms of Friendship, Love, or Hope, Must ne'er approach. Ah!--quickly hide, thou pow'r, Those dead intruding images! Oh, seal The lids of mental sight, lest I abjure My freezing supplication.--AII is still.

Idea, smother'd, leaves my mind a waste, Where SENSIBILITY must lose her prey.

Personal Life

Ann Yearsley was an English Romantic poet and writer- her works include: ‘To Indifference’ (1787) – ‘A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade’ (1788) and ‘Stanzas of Woe’ (1790). Born in Bristol on the 8th of July, 1753 to parents John and Anne Cromartie, she was educated at home in Clifton and worked as a milkmaid during her early years. At the age of 21, Ann married a yeoman farmer, John Yearsley and the couple had six children together. In 1783 she began to work for poet and patron Hannah More, who quickly noticed Yearsley’s literary talent and arranged for her work ‘Several Occasions (1785) to be published by subscription. The success of the volume led to a quarrel between More and Yearsley over access to the trust in which profits from the undertaking were held. Yearsley included her account of this quarrel in an 'Autobiographical narrative' appended to a fourth, 1786, edition of the poems. She was one of many prominent Bristol women who campaigned against the Bristol slave trade. Yearsley’s first collection, Poems on Several Occasions (1785), contained poems exploring religious and domestic themes. After her husband’s death in 1803, Yearsley retired to Melksham in Wiltshire, and died there in 1806 aged 52.

Themes of ‘To Indifference’Four of the most prominent themes of the poem are as follows.

Sensibility: Sensibility was seen as an 'anomaly in the Age of Reason' (Janet Todd, Sensibility: An Introduction, London: Methuen, 1986,p.7). It emerged as a concept in the Enlightenment Era and is the key term of the 18th Century. It describes people's capacity to be affected by the world around them. Highly gendered, Sensibility was considered a feminine weakness that was shown through crying, blushing and fainting. In Yearsley's poem, Sensibility is personified ('Then Leave me Sensibility, be gone'). Ann Yearsley repeatedly deploys sensibility in order to remove herself from the corrupting influence of society. Indifference: In the poem, the persona highlights her preference to indifference compared to sensibility ('Indifference come! thy torpid juices shed on my keen sense'). Indifference is favoured as Yearsley intends to show that sensibility is meaningless if it exists in isolation from middle-class society. Intense feeling: Poet's deeply personal emotional experience is shown in the poem with the use of images and emotionally charged language (' plunge deep my wounded heart', 'to my long restless soul', 'tost on extreme from bliss to pointed woe'). Melancholy: The sense of melancholy is evident through the images of bodily and labouring-class suffering that turn the persona into an object of sensibility ('Oh! her points have pierc'd my soul, till like a sponge it drinks up woe', 'till Death shuts out the hour').

Context

In the 18th century, the hierarchical class system which existed placed the labouring class at the bottom of society. The labourers were amongst the poorest in society, often employed as craftsmen, farmers and building or sailing merchant vessels. Poverty was widespread throughout the 18th century and those who suffered were (the equivalent of) the working class. Yearsley’s husband was a yeoman farmer and she had worked as a milkmaid when she was young and so some of the language used in the poem could be seen as a comment on the society in which she lived. Indifference is felt by the middle classes, however those who do not have that luxury, the workers, live burdened with pain; “the senseless stab of gaudy Ign’rance” – the indifference towards the suffering poor is seen as ignorant and senseless.

True or False

1) Sensibility was a key term in 18th Century literature.2) In Ann Yearsley's poem, sensibility has a positive impact on the persona's mentality.3) The poem consists of bright and hopeful images about the effects of sensibility.4) There is a poet's preference on indifference instead of sensibility.5) In the poem, sensibility is described as 'bliss'6) Constant references to persona's personal suffering exist in the poem.