A Woman's Charms

W. H. Davies’ A Woman’s Charms is a lyrical celebration of love’s transcendent power over materialism, framed through vivid natural imagery and metaphysical allusions. Written against the backdrop of early 20th-century industrialization and the Georgian poetic movement’s return to simplicity, the poem reflects Davies’ lifelong preoccupation with nature, authenticity, and the ephemeral beauty of human connection. By rejecting conventional symbols of wealth and embracing organic metaphors, Davies crafts a timeless ode to emotional and sensory richness.

Historical and Cultural Context

Davies’ work emerged during the Georgian era (1910–1935), a period marked by a reaction against Victorian excess and a renewed focus on rural life and emotional immediacy68. As industrialization reshaped Britain, poets like Davies sought refuge in nature and personal experience. His tramp lifestyle-chronicled in The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp-deeply informed his disdain for materialism, evident in lines like “My purse is yours, Sweet Heart, for I / Can count no coins with you close by”211. The poem’s dismissal of African gems and luxury furs (“sable, bear, / Or silver fox”) critiques colonial exploitation and consumerism, aligning with Davies’ socialist leanings and his Welsh working-class roots36.

Literary Devices and Themes

Metaphor and Natural Imagery
Davies substitutes material wealth with organic symbols: thoughts become “glowworms” whose “beams... throw / Their glorious light in Heaven above.” This metaphor elevates inner luminosity over external riches, a hallmark of Georgian pastoralism57. Similarly, the beloved’s smile-a “queen of charms, on a white throne”-transforms teeth into regal imagery, blending the corporeal and the divine. Such contrasts underscore the poem’s central theme: love’s ability to transmute the mundane into the sublime.

Hyperbole and Mythological Allusion
The speaker’s claim that “ten Isaiahs’ souls... could not sing such charms as thine” invokes the Old Testament prophet’s divine inspiration, suggesting the beloved’s beauty exceeds sacred utterance12. This hyperbolic reverence extends to mythological realms: her smile could lure “the mastiff from his gates in hell,” echoing Orpheus’s power to sway underworld forces. These allusions frame the beloved as a cosmic force, destabilizing hierarchies between earthly and eternal beauty10.

Sensory Accumulation
Davies employs enumeratio to catalog the woman’s attributes: “Two little hands... Two timid, little feet... Two eyes...” This litany mirrors the “countless other charms” he acknowledges, creating a crescendo of admiration. The closing simile-“October’s hedge has far less hues / Than thou hast charms”-contrasts seasonal decay with her enduring vitality, reinforcing nature’s cyclical resilience as a metaphor for lasting love912.

Biographical and Philosophical Insights

Davies’ personal history as a disabled tramp (he lost a leg in a train-hopping accident) and his late marriage to Helen Payne infuse the poem with autobiographical resonance811. The speaker’s focus on “timid, little feet” and “coral gates” (lips) suggests an intimacy rooted in Davies’ own experiences of vulnerability and desire. His rejection of wealth-“I scorn like sailors them, when they / Have drawn on shore their deep-sea pay”-parallels his life choices, as he traded financial stability for artistic freedom213.

Philosophically, the poem aligns with transcendentalist ideals, positing that true value lies beyond the material. The “waves of light” beating against the speaker’s soul evoke Platonic forms, where love illuminates higher truths510. This ethos challenges capitalist narratives, proposing that human connection and natural beauty offer a more profound currency.

Comparative Analysis

Compared to Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, which juxtaposes duty and natural allure, A Woman’s Charms wholly embraces escapism. Both poets use seasonal imagery, but Frost’s “lovely, dark and deep” woods symbolize existential contemplation, whereas Davies’ October hedge signifies abundance4. Similarly, while Donne’s The Sun Rising glorifies love’s dominion over time and space, Davies localizes this power in the female body, democratizing metaphysical conceits for a modern audience12.

Within Davies’ oeuvre, the poem shares thematic DNA with Leisure, which laments humanity’s estrangement from nature. However, A Woman’s Charms replaces elegy with ecstasy, transforming the earlier poem’s critique of modernity into a celebration of personal joy712.

Emotional Impact

The poem’s emotional force derives from its unguarded enthusiasm. Phrases like “Sweet Heart” and exclamatory cadences (“Your queen of charms!”) convey childlike wonder, disarming readers with sincerity. Davies’ tactile imagery-“fur of ermine,” “coral gates”-invites sensory immersion, while the hell-mastiff metaphor injects playful audacity. This balance of innocence and intensity mirrors the Georgian movement’s aspiration to “recover the freshness of the world” amid industrial alienation68.

Conclusion

A Woman’s Charms exemplifies Davies’ ability to distill complex themes into accessible lyricism. By wedding Georgian pastoralism to personal mythos, he crafts a love poem that transcends its era, offering a counterpoint to both Victorian ornamentation and Modernist fragmentation. In asserting that “Only my thoughts I value now,” Davies champions poetry itself as a refuge from materialism-a belief that resonates in today’s hyper-commercialized world. His work reminds us that beauty, like a glowworm’s light, persists even in darkness, guided by the twin beacons of nature and human connection.