William Lisle Bowles

“ Now look upon the sister fane of Wells!
It lifts its forehead in the summer air;
Sweet, o'er the champagne, sound its Sabbath bells,
Its roof rolls back the chant, or voice of prayer.
Anxious we ask, Will Heaven that temple spare,
Or mortal tempest sweep it from its state!
Oh! say,—shall time revere the fabric fair,
Or shall it meet, in distant years, thy fate,
Shattered, proud pile, like thee, and left as desolate!
No! to subdue or elevate the soul,
Our best, our purest feelings to refine,
Still shall the solemn diapasons roll,
Through that high fane! ”

“ The noise of generations, as they pass,
O'er the frail arch of earthly vanity,
To silence and oblivion. The loud coil
Ne'er ceases; as the running river sounds
From age to age, though each particular wave 310
That made its brief noise, as it hurried on,
Ev'n whilst we speak, is past, and heard no more;
So ever to the ear of Heaven ascends
The long, loud murmur of the rolling globe;
Its strife, its toils, its sighs, its shouts, the same!
But lo! upon the hilly croft, and scarce
Distinguished from the crags, the peasant hut
Forth peeping; nor unwelcome is the sight. ”

“ The fainting and the slain!
39 Of fifty thousand, who at morn
Came forth in armour bright,
Scarce fifteen thousand souls were left,
To tell the tale at night.
[273]
40 The Cid then wiped his bloody brow,
And thus was heard to say:
Well, Bavieca, hast thou sped,
My noble horse, to-day!
41 If thousands then escaped the sword,
Let none the Cid condemn;
For they were swept into the sea,
And the surge went over them.
42 There's many a maid of Tetuan,
All day shall sit and weep,
But never see her lover's sail
Shine on the northern deep. ”

“ O God! who madest man, I see these things,
And wearied wish for a fleet angel's wings, 320
That I might fly away, and hear no more
The surge that moans along this mortal shore!
But Joy's unclouded sunshine may not be,
Till, Father of all worlds, we rest with Thee!
Then Truth, uplifting from thy works the pall,
Shall speak: In wisdom hast Thou made them all;
Then angels and archangels, as they gaze,
And all the acclaiming host of heaven, shall raise
The loud hosannah of eternal praise!
Here all is mixed with sorrow; and the clouds 330
Hang awfully, whose shade the dim earth shrouds ”

“ THE BLIND MAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.
There is a poor blind man, who, every day,
In summer sunshine, or in winter's rain,
Duly as tolls the bell, to the high fane
Explores, with faltering footsteps, his dark way,
[260] To kneel before his Maker, and to hear
The chaunted service, pealing full and clear.
Ask why alone in the same spot he kneels
Through the long year. Oh, the wide world is cold,
As dark, to him! Here he no longer feels
His sad bereavement. Faith and Hope uphold
His heart; he feels not he is poor and blind,
Amid the unpitying tumult of his mind. ”

“ The famished vulture scents its prey.
Spectre, hence! we cannot die— 130
Thy withering weapons we defy;
Dire and potent as thou art!
Then spoke the phantom of the uplifted dart:
Spirits who in darkness dwell,
I heard far off your secret spell!
Enough, on yonder fatal shore,
My fiends have drank your children's gore;
Lo! I come, and doom to fate
The murderers, and the foe you hate!
Of all who shook their hostile spears, 140
And marked their way through blood and tears,
(Now sleeping still on yonder plain)
But one—one only shall remain,
Ere thrice the morn shall shine again. ”

“ With smiling light, that, lingering on the tower,
Reminds earth's pilgrim of his lasting home.
Is that a magic garden on the edge
Of Mendip hung? Even so it seems to gleam;
While many a cottage, on to Wrington's smoke
(Wrington, the birth-place of immortal Locke) ,
Chequers the village-crofts and lowly glens
With porch of flowers, and bird-cage, at the door,200
That seems to say—England, with all thy crimes,
And smitten as thou art by pauper-laws,
England, thou only art the poor man's home!
And yonder Blagdon, in its sheltered glen,
Sits pensive, like a rock-bird in its cleft. ”

“ 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 10
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. ”

“ Is silent. Ailric, does no hope, even now,
Arise on thy dark heart? Good father, speak!
With aspect mild, on which its fitful light
The watch-tower lamp threw pale, the monk replied:
Youth, on thy light hair and ingenuous brow
Most comely sits the morn of life; on me,230
And this bare head, the night of time descends
In sorrow. I look back upon the past,
And think of joy and sadness upon earth,
Like the vast ocean's fluctuating toil
From everlasting! I have seen its waste
Now in the sunshine sleeping; now high-ridged
With storms; and such the kingdoms of the earth. ”

“ Mingled with tears and prayer to God in heaven.
So dream; and never, never may those eyes
Awake suffused with tears, as mine are now,
To think that life's best hopes are such a dream!
Now sleeps the city through its vast extent,
That, restless as the ocean-waves, at morn,
With its ten thousand voices shall awake,
Lifting the murmur of its multitude
To heaven's still gate! Now all is hushed as death;
None are awake, save those who wake to weep,
Like me; save those who meditate revenge,
Or beckon muttering Murder. God of heaven! ”

“ Of the dark hollies; to the woody shore 20
That steals diminished, to the distant spires
Of Hampton, crowning the long lucid wave.
White in the sun, beneath the forest-shade,
Full shines the frequent sail, like Vanity,
As she goes onward in her glittering trim,
Amid the glances of life's transient morn,
Calling on all to view her!
Vectis [104] there,
That slopes its greensward to the lambent wave,
And shows through softest haze its woods and domes, 30
With gray St Catherine's [105] creeping to the sky,
Seems like a modest maid, who charms the more
Concealing half her beauties. ”

“ When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast,
Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide
That laves the pebbled shore: and now the beam
Of evening smiles on the gray battlement,
And yon forsaken tower that time has rent:—
The lifted oar far off with transient gleam
Is touched, and hushed is all the billowy deep!
Soothed by the scene, thus on tired Nature's breast
A stillness slowly steals, and kindred rest;
While sea-sounds lull her, as she sinks to sleep,
Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre,
Waked by the breeze, and, as they mourn, expire! ”

“ At Waltham Abbey, o'er King Harold's grave
A requiem was chanted; for last night
A passing spirit shook the battlements,
And the pale monk, at midnight, as he watched
The lamp, beheld it tremble; whilst the shrines
Shook, as the deep foundations of the fane
Were moved. Oh! pray for Harold's soul! he cried.
And now, at matin bell, the monks were met,
And slowly pacing round the grave, they sang:
DIRGE.
Peace, oh! ”

“ Where the rich landscape gleams with softer hue,
The streams, and vales, and hills, that steal away. [Pg 16]
So fares it with the children of the earth:
For when life's goodly prospect opens round,
Their spirits burn to tread that fairy ground,
Where every vale sounds to the pipe of mirth.
But them, alas! the dream of youth beguiles,
And soon a longing look, like me, they cast
Back on the mountains of the morning past:
Yet Hope still beckons us, and beckoning smiles,
And to a brighter world her view extends,
When earth's long darkness on her path descends. ”

“ Wore the same smile, yet with a trace more weak.
Lone sorrow came as life declined, and care,
And age, with slowly furrowing line, was there.
I could have spared this fearful sight! Most strange
Is the eventful tale of mortal change,
Inevitable; but death, brought so nigh,
In form so tangible, harrows the eye.
As all the past floats like a cloud away,
Alas, poor Sheridan! I turn and say,
Not without feelings which such sights impart,
Sad, but instructive, to the Christian's heart!
May 18, 1826.
RETURN OF GEORGE III. TO WINDSOR CASTLE.
Not that thy name, illustrious dome! ”

“ Is dark with weeds; and birds of land are seen
To wing the desert tract, as hasting on 510
To the green valleys of their distant home.
Yet morn succeeds to morn—and nought around
Is seen, but dark weeds floating many a league,
The sun's sole orb, and the pale hollowness
Of heaven's high arch streaked with the early clouds.
Watchman, what from the giddy mast?
A shade
Appears on the horizon's hazy line.
Land! land! aloud is echoed; but the spot
Fades as the shouting crew delighted gaze— 520
It fades, and there is nothing—nothing now
But the blue sky, the clouds, and surging seas! ”

“ William some years survived, but years no trace
Of his sick heart's deep anguish could erase.
Still the dread spectre seemed to rise, and, worse,
Still in his ears rang the appalling curse!20
While loud he cries, despair upon his look,
Oh! shut the book, my Mary, shut the book!
The sun is slowly westering now, and lo,
How beautiful steals out the humid bow,
A radiant arch! Listen, whilst I relate
William's dread judgment, and poor Mary's fate.
I think I see the pine, that, heavily
Swaying, yet seems as for the dead to sigh. ”

“ Alas! the scenes that smile in light arrayed
But catch the sense, and then in darkness fade.
We, poor adventurers, of peace bereft,
Look back on the green hills that late we left, 50
Or turn, with beating breast and anxious eye,
To some faint hope that glimmering meets our sight
(Like the lone watch-tower in the storm of night) ,
Then on the dismal waste are driv'n despairing by!
Meantime, amid the landscape cold and mute,
Hope, sweet enchanter, sighing drops his lute:
So sad decay and mortal change succeeds,
And o'er the silent scene Time, like a giant, speeds! ”

“ I'd rather be a bird to fly away,
Or sing—
Eliz. The serpent's eye of fire,
With slow and deadly glare, poor bird, I fear,
Is fixed on thee and Edward—God avert it!
Rich. And therefore must not I go out to play?
Eliz. Go, play among the tombs—I will go too;
Go, play with skulls and bones; or see the train
Of sceptred kings come slowly through the gloom,
And widowed queens move in the shroud of death
Along the glimmering aisles and hollow vaults.
Would I were with them—I shall be so soon!
Rich. Mother, methought I saw him yesterday—
Eliz. ”

“ And hark! a voice—a woman's voice, its sound
Dies in faint echoes, 'mid the vault profound: 40
Let us pity the poor white maid! [223]
She has no mother near!
No friend to dry her tear!
Upon the cold earth she is laid:
Let us pity the poor white maid!
It seemed the burden of a song of woe;
And see, across the gloom an Indian girl move slow!
Her nearer look is sorrowful, yet mild,
Her hanging locks are wreathed with rock-weed wild;
Gently she spoke, Poor Christian, dry thy tear: 50
Art thou afraid? all are not cruel here. ”

“ Shot far into the cave.
John gazed with awe
On that majestic man, he knew not why;
And well might he have gazed with reverence,
For here, in this rude spot, he only saw
Men the most dark and savage of their kind,
Murderers, and ruthless criminals in chains.160
He spoke to them of truth and righteousness—
He spoke of an offended God! Some looked
To the bright sun, defying; others turned
Muttering. He spoke of pity, and they heard,
Even as the relentless hurricane
Hears the last prayer of the faint mariner,
Whom wintry waves had dashed upon the rocks. ”