The Pemberley Poems

Chris Webster writes: This little book of thirty-one poems is based on the assumption that Darcy wrote poetry to Elizabeth Bennet from the time he first met her, to long after their marriage. This assumption seems reasonable in the light of a conversation in Chapter 9 of Pride and Prejudice, in which Darcy says: “I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love.” I have taken the liberty of developing this side of Darcy’s character and attempting to write the poems that he might have written in the course of his relationship with Elizabeth. I offer them to you in the hope that they will add something to your enjoyment of the world of Pride and Prejudice, and even that you might appreciate some of them in their own right. As the free sample does not go as far as the poems, here is a sonnet from chapter 1, First Impressions: Sonnet To Elizabeth’s Fine Eyes I have been meditating on the pleasure That fine eyes in a fair face can bestow. Nothing is more beautiful! No treasure Is more precious! No diamond can glow More brilliantly! For in those shining eyes I see her soul, reflecting that in me; Except it is more gentle and more wise, Putting my pride to shame with modesty. And if her eyes are gems, what of the setting? Her face, I mean; ’tis like a cameo Of purest ivory. This world of getting And spending has no finer thing to show. Whose eyes, you ask, inspired me in this tenet? Only the eyes of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.