Epitaph On Robert Southey.

Christian! for none who scorns that holy name
Can gaze with honest eyes on Southey's fame;
Christian! bow down thy head in humble fear,
And think what God-given powers lie silenced here:
Wit, judgment, memory, patience unsubdued,
Conception vast, and pious fortitude.
Learning possessed no steeps, and truth no shore,
Beyond his step to tread, his wing to soar;
His was the historian's pen, the poet's lyre,
The churchman's ardour, and the patriot's fire;
While fireside charities, Heaven's gentlest dower,
Lent genius all their warmth and all their power.
O Church and State of England! thine was he
In living fame, thine be his memory!
Thou saw'st him live, in faith expire,
Go, bid thy sons to follow, and admire!

William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles was an English cleric, poet, and critic who was born on 24th September 1762 and died on 7th April 1850. He is best known for his sonnets, which were highly praised by the Romantic poets. Bowles's work significantly influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Besides his poetry, he wrote extensively on literary criticism and editing. Bowles spent much of his clerical career in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

William Lisle Bowles

Sonnet. Written In A Copy Of Falconer's "Shipwreck."

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

After A Tempestuous Voyage. (At Tynemouth Priory)

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Bamborough Castle

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The Harp, And Despair, Of Cowper

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Victory.

    Hark--how the church-bells thundering harmony
    Stuns the glad ear! tidings of joy have come,
    Good tidings of great joy! two gallant ships
    Met on the element,--they met, they fought
    A desperate fight!--good tidings of great joy!
    Old England triumphed! yet another day
    Of glory for the ruler of the waves!
    For those who fell, 'twas in their country's cause,
    They have their passing paragraphs of praise
    And are forgotten.
    There was one who died
    In that day's glory, whose obscurer name
    No proud historian's page will chronicle.
    Peace to his honest soul! I read his name,
    'Twas in the list of slaughter, and blest God
    The sound was not familiar to mine ear.
    But it was told me after that this man
    ...

Robert Southey

Sonnet IV.

What tho' no sculptur'd monument proclaim
    Thy fate-yet Albert in my breast I bear
Inshrin'd the sad remembrance; yet thy name
    Will fill my throbbing bosom. When DESPAIR
The child of murdered HOPE, fed on thy heart,
    Loved honored friend, I saw thee sink forlorn
Pierced to the soul by cold Neglect's keen dart,
    And Penury's hard ills, and pitying Scorn,
And the dark spectre of departed JOY
    Inhuman MEMORY. Often on thy grave
Love I the solitary hour to employ
Thinking on other days; and heave the sigh
    Responsive, when I mark the high grass wave
Sad sounding as the cold breeze rustles by.

Robert Southey

Inscription For A Monument In Crosthwaite Church, In The Vale Of Keswick

Ye vales and hills whose beauty hither drew
The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you
His eyes have closed! And ye, loved books, no more
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown,
Adding immortal labours of his own,
Whether he traced historic truth, with zeal
For the State's guidance, or the Church's weal,
Or Fancy, disciplined by studious art,
Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart,
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot's mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast
Could private feelings meet for holier rest.
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud
From Skiddaw's top; but he to heaven was vowed
Through his industrious life, and Christian faith
...

William Wordsworth

Elegiac Musings - In The Grounds Of Coleorton Hall, The Seat Of The Late Sir G. H. Beaumont, Bart.

With copious eulogy in prose or rhyme
Graven on the tomb we struggle against Time,
Alas, how feebly! but our feelings rise
And still we struggle when a good man dies:
Such offering Beaumont dreaded and forbade,
A spirit meek in self-abasement clad.
Yet 'here' at least, though few have numbered days
That shunned so modestly the light of praise
His graceful manners, and the temperate ray
Of that arch fancy which would round him play,
Brightening a converse never known to swerve
From courtesy and delicate reserve;
That sense, the bland philosophy of life,
Which checked discussion ere it warmed to strife
Those rare accomplishments, and varied powers,
Might have their record among sylvan bowers.
Oh, fled for ever! vanished like a blast
That shook the leaves in...

William Wordsworth

Epistle To The Bishop Of Landaff.

Christmas Day, 1811.

Epistle.

Thy fav'rite Prelate haste, my verse! to greet
Adorning nature in his sylvan seat!
His southern hermit, his unchanging friend,
Sends him such tribute, as the heart may send,
Love, that, in honouring a peaceful sage,
Invokes all blessings on his hallowed age.
Though many a mountain rears its head between
His wood-crown'd mansion, and my cell marine,
In mental vision I his form survey
Thro' various periods of our vital day;
Now as his manly figure struck my sight,
When first I heard his voice, with new delight,
Imparting science, or celestial truth,
With Latin eloquence, to English youth;
And now, as when, o'erpowering sceptic strife
In his mild vigor of maturer life:
His liberal spirit gain'd the world's appla...

William Hayley

Epitaph I. On Charles Earl Of Dorset, In The Church Of Withyam, In Sussex.

'His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere!'

VIRG.

Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd vice had his hate and pity too.
Blest courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

Alexander Pope