On A Beautiful Landscape

Beautiful landscape! I could look on thee
For hours, unmindful of the storm and strife,
And mingled murmurs of tumultuous life.
Here, all is still as fair; the stream, the tree,
The wood, the sunshine on the bank: no tear,
No thought of Time's swift wing, or closing night,
That comes to steal away the long sweet light
No sighs of sad humanity are here.
Here is no tint of mortal change; the day,
Beneath whose light the dog and peasant-boy
Gambol, with look, and almost bark, of joy,
Still seems, though centuries have passed, to stay.
Then gaze again, that shadowed scenes may teach
Lessons of peace and love, beyond all speech.

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

The Swallow And The Red-Breast. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.) An Apologue.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The Winds

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

On Meeting Some Friends Of Youth At Cheltenham, For The First Time Since We Parted At Oxford.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The Mower. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

English

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Summer Evening At Home

Come, lovely Evening! with thy smile of peace
Visit my humble dwelling; welcomed in,
Not with loud shouts, and the thronged city's din,
But with such sounds as bid all tumult cease
Of the sick heart; the grasshopper's faint pipe
Beneath the blades of dewy grass unripe,
The bleat of the lone lamb, the carol rude
Heard indistinctly from the village green,
The bird's last twitter, from the hedge-row seen,
Where, just before, the scattered crumbs I strewed,
To pay him for his farewell song; all these
Touch soothingly the troubled ear, and please
The stilly-stirring fancies. Though my hours
(For I have drooped beneath life's early showers)
Pass lonely oft, and oft my heart is sad,
Yet I can leave the world, and feel most glad
To meet thee, Evening, here; here my ow...

William Lisle Bowles

Sketch From Bowden Hill After Sickness

How cheering are thy prospects, airy hill,
To him who, pale and languid, on thy brow
Pauses, respiring, and bids hail again
The upland breeze, the comfortable sun,
And all the landscape's hues! Upon the point
Of the descending steep I stand.
    How rich,
How mantling in the gay and gorgeous tints
Of summer! far beneath me, sweeping on,
From field to field, from vale to cultured vale,
The prospect spreads its crowded beauties wide!
Long lines of sunshine, and of shadow, streak
The farthest distance; where the passing light
Alternate falls, 'mid undistinguished trees,
White dots of gleamy domes, and peeping towers,
As from the painter's instant touch, appear.
As thus the eye ranges from hill to hill,
Here white with passing sunshine, there with trees
...

William Lisle Bowles

After A Tempest.

The day had been a day of wind and storm;
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,
And stooping from the zenith bright and warm
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.
I stood upon the upland slope, and cast
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene,
Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast,
And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green,
With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between.

The rain-drops glistened on the trees around,
Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred,
Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground,
Was shaken by the flight of startled bird;
For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard
About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung
And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward;
To the gray oak the squirrel, ...

William Cullen Bryant

A Picturesque Cottage And Grounds Belonging To J. Lemon, Esq.

Stranger! mark this lovely scene,
When the evening sets serene,
And starting o'er the silent wood,
The last pale sunshine streaks the flood,
And the water gushing near
Soothes, with ceaseless drip, thine ear;
Then bid each passion sink to rest;
Should ev'n one wish rise in thy breast,
One tender wish, as now in mine,
That some such quiet spot were thine,
And thou, recalling seasons fled,
Couldst wake the slumbers of the dead,
And bring back her you loved, to share
With thee calm peace and comfort there;
Oh, check the thought, but inly pray
To HE, "who gives and takes away,"
That many years this fair domain
Its varied beauties may retain;
So when some wanderer, who has lost
His heart's best treasure, who has crossed
In life bleak hills and p...

William Lisle Bowles

Monody, Written At Matlock.

Matlock! amid thy hoary-hanging views,
Thy glens that smile sequestered, and thy nooks
Which yon forsaken crag all dark o'erlooks;
Once more I court the long neglected Muse,
As erst when by the mossy brink and falls
Of solitary Wainsbeck, or the side
Of Clysdale's cliffs, where first her voice she tried,
I strayed a pensive boy. Since then, the thralls
That wait life's upland road have chilled her breast,
And much, as much they might, her wing depressed.
Wan Indolence, resigned, her deadening hand
Laid on her heart, and Fancy her cold wand
Dropped at the frown of fortune; yet once more
I call her, and once more her converse sweet,
'Mid the still limits of this wild retreat,
I woo; if yet delightful as of yore
My heart she may revisit, nor deny
The soothin...

William Lisle Bowles

A Summer Ramble.

The quiet August noon has come,
A slumberous silence fills the sky,
The fields are still, the woods are dumb,
In glassy sleep the waters lie.

And mark yon soft white clouds that rest
Above our vale, a moveless throng;
The cattle on the mountain's breast
Enjoy the grateful shadow long.

Oh, how unlike those merry hours
In early June when Earth laughs out,
When the fresh winds make love to flowers,
And woodlands sing and waters shout.

When in the grass sweet voices talk,
And strains of tiny music swell
From every moss-cup of the rock,
From every nameless blossom's bell.

But now a joy too deep for sound,
A peace no other season knows,
Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground,
The blessing of supreme repose.

Away! I ...

William Cullen Bryant