Quotes about bowles, page 13
On William Sommers Of Bremhill
When will the grave shelter thy few gray hairs,
O aged man! Thy sand is almost run,
And many a year, in vain, to meet the sun,
Thine eyes have rolled in darkness; want and cares
Have been thy visitants from morn to morn.
While trembling on existence thou dost live,
Accept what human charity can give;
But standing thus, time-palsied, and forlorn,
Like a scathed oak, of all its boughs bereft,
God and the grave are thy best refuge left.
When the bells rung, and summer's smiling ray
Welcomed again the merry Whitsuntide,
And all my humble villagers were gay;
I saw thee sitting on the highway side,
To feel once more the warm sun's blessed beam:
Didst thou then think upon thy own gay prime,
On such a holiday, and the glad time
When thou wert young and happy, like a dream
Now perished! No; the murmured prayer alone
Rose from the trembling lips towards the Throne
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Song Of The American Indian
Stranger, stay, nor wish to climb
The heights of yonder hills sublime;
For there strange shapes and spirits dwell,
That oft the murmuring thunders swell,
Of power from the impending steep
To hurl thee headlong to the deep;
But secure with us abide,
By the winding river's side;
Our gladsome toil, our pleasures share,
And think not of a world of care.
The lonely cayman, where he feeds
Among the green high-bending reeds,
Shall yield thee pastime; thy keen dart
Through his bright scales shall pierce his heart.
Home returning from our toils,
Thou shalt bear the tiger's spoils;
And we will sing our loudest strain
O'er the forest-tyrant slain!
Sometimes thou shalt pause to hear
The beauteous cardinal sing clear;
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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On the Funeral of Charles the First
The castle clock had tolled midnight:
With mattock and with spade,
And silent, by the torches' light,
His corse in earth we laid.
The coffin bore his name, that those
Of other years might know,
When earth its secrets should disclose,
Whose bones were laid below.
"Peace to the dead" no children sung,
Slow pacing up the nave,--
No prayers were read, no knell was rung,
As deep we dug his grave.
We only heard the winter's wind,
In many a sullen gust,
As, o'er the open grave inclined,
We murmured, "Dust to dust!"
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Sun-Dial, In The Churchyard Of Bremhill
So passes silent o'er the dead thy shade,
Brief Time; and hour by hour, and day by day,
The pleasing pictures of the present fade,
And like a summer vapour steal away!
And have not they, who here forgotten lie
(Say, hoary chronicler of ages past!)
Once marked thy shadow with delighted eye,
Nor thought it fled, how certain, and how fast!
Since thou hast stood, and thus thy vigil kept,
Noting each hour, o'er mouldering stones beneath;
The pastor and his flock alike have slept,
And dust to dust proclaimed the stride of death.
Another race succeeds, and counts the hour,
Careless alike; the hour still seems to smile,
As hope, and youth, and life, were in our power;
So smiling and so perishing the while.
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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On The Busts Of Milton, In Youth And Age, At Stourhead
IN YOUTH.
Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
To mar its openness, we seem to trace
The front of the first lord of human race,
'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair,
Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air
That characters thy youth. Shall time efface
These lineaments as crowding cares assail!
It is the lot of fall'n humanity.
What boots it! armed in adamantine mail,
The unconquerable mind, and genius high,
Right onward hold their way through weal and woe,
Or whether life's brief lot be high or low!
IN AGE.
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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On Leaving A Place Of Residence
If I could bid thee, pleasant shade, farewell
Without a sigh, amidst whose circling bowers
My stripling prime was passed, and happiest hours,
Dead were I to the sympathies that swell
The human breast! These woods, that whispering wave,
My father reared and nursed, now to the grave
Gone down; he loved their peaceful shades, and said,
Perhaps, as here he mused: Live, laurels green;
Ye pines that shade the solitary scene,
Live blooming and rejoice! When I am dead
My son shall guard you, and amid your bowers,
Like me, find shelter from life's beating showers.
These thoughts, my father, every spot endear;
And whilst I think, with self-accusing pain,
A stranger shall possess the loved domain,
In each low wind I seem thy voice to hear.
But these are shadows of the shaping brain
That now my heart, alas! can ill sustain:
We must forget--the world is wide--the abode
Of peace may still be found, nor hard the road.
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Avenue In Savernake Forest
How soothing sound the gentle airs that move
The innumerable leaves, high overhead,
When autumn first, from the long avenue,
That lifts its arching height of ancient shade,
Steals here and there a leaf!
Within the gloom,
In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear,
Studding the glens of fern; in solemn shade
Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all,
All make a sad sweet music, as they move,
Not undelightful to a stranger's heart.
They seem to say, in accents audible,
Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains
Of many a lithe and feathered chorister,
That through the depth of these incumbent woods
Made the long summer gladsome.
I have heard
To the deep-mingling sounds of organs clear,
(When slow the choral anthem rose beneath),
The glimmering minster, through its pillared aisles,
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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To One demanding why Wine sparkles
So Diamonds sparkle, and thy Mistriss eyes;
When tis not Fire but light in either flyes.
Beauty not thaw'd by lustful flames will show
Like a fair mountain of unmelted snow:
Nor can the tasted vine more danger bring
Then water taken from the chrystall Spring,
Whose end is to refresh and cool that heat
Which unallayd becomes foul vices seat:
Unless thy boyling veins, mad with desire
Of drink, convert the liquor into fire.
For then thou quaff'st down feavers, thy full bowles
Carouse the burning draughts of Portia's coles.
If it do leap and sparkle in the cup,
Twill sink thy cares, and help invention up.
There never yet was Muse or Poet known
Not dipt or drenched in this Helicon.
But Tom! take heed thou use it with such care
As Witches deal with their Familiar.
For if thy vertues circle not confine
And guard thee from the Furies rais'd by wine,
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poem by Henry King
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Fairy Sketch
SCENE--NETLEY ABBEY.
There was a morrice on the moonlight plain,
And music echoed in the woody glade,
For fay-like forms, as of Titania's train,
Upon a summer eve, beneath the shade
Of Netley's ivied ruins, to the sound
Of sprightly minstrelsy did beat the ground:--
Come, take hands! and lightly move,
While our boat, in yonder cove,
Rests upon the darkening sea;
Come, take hands, and follow me!
Netley! thy dim and desolated fane
Hath heard, perhaps, the spirits of the night
Shrieking, at times, amid the wind and rain;
Or haply, when the full-orbed moon shone bright,
Thy glimmering aisles have echoed to the song
Of fairy Mab, who led her shadowy masque along.
Now, as to the sprightly sound
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Battle Of Corruna
The tide of fate rolls on!--heart-pierced and pale,
The gallant soldier lies, nor aught avail,
The shield, the sword, the spirit of the brave,
From rapine's armed hand thy vales to save,
Land of illustrious heroes, who, of yore,
Drenched the same plains with the invader's gore,
Stood frowning, in the front of death, and hurled
Defiance to the conquerors of the world!
Oh, when we hear the agonising tale
Of those who, faint, and fugitive, and pale,
Saw hourly, harassed through their long retreat,
Some worn companion sinking at their feet,
Yet even in danger and from toil more bold,
Back on their gathering foes the tide of battle rolled;--
While tears of pity mingle with applause,
On the dread scene in silence let us pause;
Yes, pause, and ask, Is not thy awful hand
Stretched out, O God, o'er a devoted land,
Whose vales of beauty Nature spread in vain,
Where misery moaned on the uncultured plain,
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poem by William Lisle Bowles
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