Sonnet Written in the Church Yard at Middleton

The poem describes the sight of a thirteenth-century church in what is now known as Middleton-on-Sea in West Sussex. The churchyard of the poem's title was the church's cemetery. The area had been subject to substantial erosion since at least 1341, and preventative measures were employed in 1570 and 1779. In 1606 the church was approximately 170 yards from the high tide mark, but in 1724 the sea had encroached so much that the church was 20 yards from the edge. Smith visited the church in 1789, at which time the church was only a few feet from the shore, and the surrounding wall and many of the graves had eroded into the sea. Nonetheless, the church continued to be used until the building collapsed in 1838. In 1840, all that was visible was a two-foot fragment of wall, and by 1847 the church was entirely gone. A new church was consecrated nearby in 1849. The gradual collapse of the church was considered picturesque, and made the church into a minor tourist attraction. Several illustrations of the church appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine. Guidebooks and letters of tourists often referenced Smith's sonnet.[2]

William Wordsworth singled out Sonnet XLIV in his personal 1789 copy of Elegiac Sonnets. Wordsworth's own later sonnets were influenced by Smith, and he privately described her as "a lady to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered," although he never discussed her works publicly. Wordsworth wrote on his copy to change the final line of Smith's poem from "To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest" to "To envy their insensible unrest."[4][lower-alpha 1]