The Sorrow of Charlotte Smith

At the end of Sonnet III by Charlotte Smith, there are two lines that say, "Ah! songstress sad! that such my lot might be,/ To sigh and sing at liberty- like thee!" Though I am slightly confused at to who wishes they could sing at liberty or who does sing at liberty, I read the lines under my own interpretation anyway.

I take this line as one being spoken by Smith, she is the sad songstress while the nightingale is "thee". This line is slightly in response to her sentiments in Sonnet I: those who suffer most express themselves the best. Throughout that Sonnet however, Smith hints that she wishes the situation were not so. It seems she wishes that there wasn't so much pain and sorrow involved.

I also feel like Smith understands the role of an artist in reference to the audience or those that will see her work. She understands that everyone will interpret her work, discuss why she wrote what she did, try and figure out what she meant by each word and line. That's almost a "hazard of the job." This is what I feel she is referring to in Sonnet III.

Smith writes about the nightingale (we've seen a lot of those) and how it spends it's night lamenting. I feel that she envies the nightingale's ability to sing all night and not be bothered or pestered about meaning. There is a line in Sonnet III that also mentions something being released into the wild, which I thought was about the nightingale's freedom in it's expression. Smith doesn't have the same luxury, the same "liberty"; her words will be picked apart and analyzed to learn the meanings and message. Coincidentally, this is the exact measure I have taken here to prove my own point.