A woman whose lover had little money but gave her all his heart grieves now that he has gone to sea in search of wealth, longing for a simple life together and weeping on the shore.
How Williams's song-like quatrains, regular rhyme, the turn in the third stanza, the contrast of riches and love, and the closing storm present faithful love left behind by a lover who wants more.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'No riches from his scanty store', 'He gave me all his heart!', 'in search of gain', 'From shore to shore he flies', 'When love is all I prize?', 'The frugal meal, the lowly cot', 'Were more than wealth to me', 'Is pity in the faithless waves', 'The night is dark, the waters deep', 'The storm is in my soul'.
Form: six numbered quatrains in short, regular lines of four and three beats rhyming ABAB, the shape of a traditional song; a turn at But now in the third stanza, when the lover leaves; a shift from he to thee as she imagines speaking to him; and a closing storm that mirrors her feelings.
Context: Helen Maria Williams (1761–1827), born in London, whose first poem was published in 1783 with the help of the dissenter Andrew Kippis; Poems (1786), two volumes published by subscription with a dedication to the Queen, whose preface says she wrote them young and with little formal education; and her later life in France, where her Letters from France described the Revolution and she was imprisoned during the Terror.
Links within the cluster: Dusting the Phone (longing for an absent lover), Love and Friendship (whether love lasts), The Perseverance (waiting for someone who is elsewhere) and Warming Her Pearls (a love that is not equal).
OCR's mark schemes suggest it for a difficult relationship (2023) and an unequal one (2025); examiners saw most students read the difficulty as distance and misunderstanding between the lovers, and praised one who noticed how the pronoun his shows the pair growing apart.
Pairs well with an unseen poem about a lover far away, or love set against money: compare whether each speaker blames the lover or only grieves.
OCR's question on this cluster has two parts. Part (a), 20 marks, compares a named poem from the cluster, printed on the paper, with an unseen poem on a linked theme, and rewards analysis of language, form and structure (AO2) most, then your response (AO1); an answer on only one of the two poems cannot go above Level 3. Part (b), 20 marks, explores one other poem from the same cluster that you choose, from memory, with AO1 and AO2 equally weighted; a poem from a different cluster means only the higher of your two marks counts. Neither part marks context: use it only where it explains a reading. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the part it is for.
