Neighbour of the wave

Winter on the Sussex coast has long been associated with health, sea air and bracing walks along the shore. When Brighton was consolidating its reputation as a fashionable watering place in the early nineteenth century, those qualities were already being recorded in print. In 1809 Mary Lloyd published Brighton: A Poem, Descriptive of the Place and Parts Adjacent, an extended verse account of the town that set out to capture its setting, its visitors and its daily rhythms.

Little is known about Lloyd herself. The book appears to be her only published volume. It was issued by subscription rather than through a commercial publisher, a common Georgian practice that secured sales in advance and reduced financial risk. The volume runs to eighty-eight pages and includes a substantial list of subscribers, among them the Duke of Clarence and Mrs Fitzherbert, alongside military officers and members of Brighton society. The book was sold in London and locally, and its subscription list indicates a readership closely connected to the resort and its seasonal life.

The volume is more than a single poem. Alongside the long descriptive piece are miscellaneous shorter poems, including several written in Scottish dialect, suggesting personal connections beyond Sussex. The book is illustrated with two engraved plates: a frontispiece view looking west across Brighton, and a separate plate depicting the Royal Chain Pier (and a nameplate). These images anchor the poem in recognisable topography and align the work with the growing market for picturesque views of the town.

The title poem itself is written largely in rhyming couplets and adopts the voice of a strolling observer, moving between shore, cliff and town. Lloyd stated her intention was to delineate Brighton’s scenes at the seasons and hours when they appeared most striking, and the poem progresses from morning activity to evening calm. Fishermen, boats, bathers and promenaders populate the beach, while the sea provides both spectacle and sublimity. Contemporary reviewers were reserved about Lloyd’s poetic powers, but noted that her work excelled in accuracy of description and in capturing the characteristic features of the place.

The poem repeatedly returns to the meeting of land and water, where human activity gives way to the scale and movement of the sea. To close with Lloyd’s own words, here are unedited extracts describing Brighton’s shore and seaward outlook: (Sources: Googlebooks and Quaritch.

Brighton: A Poem

Extract 1 (opening)

‘BRIGHTON! thou loveliest neighbour of the wave,
Whose stately cliffs the rolling surges lave,
Where roseate health, amid the breezes play,
Whose gentle breathings cool the fervid ray
Of scorching summer; pleasing gay Retreat,
Beauty, and fashion’s ever favourite seat:
Where splendour lays its cumbrous pomp aside,
Content, in softer, simpler paths to glide;
Where in succession, various pastimes sport,
Where nature’s grand and simple beauties court,
Where every taste may find a charm to please,
If fond of the sublime; the surging seas
Their vast floods rolling on the sounding shores,
When the bold wind unfolds the billowy stores;
Will lift with solemn awe the wond’ring soul,
To Him! who bade those mighty waters roll.’

Extract 2 (early-morning shoreline and the beach)

‘How sweet the sea-girt shore to pace along,
What time the lark begins her matin song,
When the mild moon her regency declines,
And to the glorious sun the reign resigns;
While the blue waves rejoicing in the light,
Reflect the golden smiles that chase the night.’

Extract 3 (fishermen coming in)

‘How sweet to mark the vessels’ devious way,
Their white sails glittering in the morning ray;
What time the weary fisher ends his toil,
And homeward steers, exulting o’er the spoil:
See the bold youths, who snare the finny train,
Press every sail, and through the liquid plain,
Cheerly pursue their course, to gain the shore,
While joyous they survey their hard-earn’d store;
And ere the boat has clear’d the surging deep,
Advent’rous, in the waters see them leap,’