On Miss Fitzgerald And Lord Kerry Planting Two Cedars In The Churchyard Of Bremhill.

Yes, Pamela, this infant tree
Planted in sacred earth by thee,
Shall strike its root, and pleasant grow
Whilst I am mouldering dust below.
This churchyard turf shall still be green,
When other pastors here are seen,
Who, gazing on that dial gray,
Shall mourn, like me, life's passing ray.
What says its monitory shade?
Thyself so blooming, now shalt fade;
And even that fair and lightsome boy,
Elastic as the step of joy,
The future lord of yon domain,
And all this wide extended plain,
Shall yield to creeping time, when they
Who loved him shall have passed away.
Yet, planted by his youthful hand,
The fellow-cedar still shall stand,
And when it spreads its boughs around,
Shading the consecrated ground,
He may behold its shade, and say
(Himself then haply growing gray),
Yes, I remember, aged tree,
When I was young who planted thee!
But long may time, blithe maiden, spare
Thy beaming eyes and crisped hair,
Thy unaffected converse kind,
Thy gentle and ingenuous mind.
For him when I in dust repose,
May virtue guide him as he grows;
And may he, when no longer young,
Resemble those from whom he sprung!
Then let these trees extend their shade,
Or live or die, or bloom or fade,
Virtue, uninjured and sublime,
Shall lift her brightest wreath, untouched by time.

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

In Age

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The Children's Hymn For Their Patroness. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

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

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Silchester, The Ancient Caleva.[199]

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

English

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Inscriptions In The Gardens Of Bremhill Rectory.

ON A TREE COMMANDING A VIEW OF THE WHOLE EXTENT OF BOWOOD.

When in thy sight another's vast domain
Spreads its long line of woods, dost thou complain?
Nay, rather thank the God that placed thy state
Above the lowly, but beneath the great!
And still His name with gratitude revere,
Who blessed the Sabbath of thy leisure here.

ON A RURAL SEAT.

Rest, stranger, in this decorated scene,
That hangs its beds of flowers, its slopes so green;
So from the walks of life the weeds remove,
But fix thy better hopes on scenes above.

ON THE FRONT OF A HERMITAGE, NEAR A DIAL.

To mark life's few and fleeting hours
I placed the dial 'midst the flowers,
Which one by one came forth and died,
Still withering by its ancient side.
Mortals, let the si...

William Lisle Bowles

The Burial-Place. - A Fragment.

Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong
And natural dread of man's last home, the grave,
Its frost and silence, they disposed around,
To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt
Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues
Of vegetable beauty. There the yew,
Green even amid the snows of winter, told
Of immortality, and gracefully
The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;
And there the gadding woodbine crept about,
And there the ancient ivy. From the spot
Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years
Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands
That trembled as they placed her there, the rose
Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke
Her graces, ...

William Cullen Bryant

The Old Ash Tree.

Thou beautiful Ash! thou art lowly laid,
    And my eyes shall hail no more
From afar thy cool and refreshing shade,
    When the toilsome journey's o'er.
The winged and the wandering tribes of air
    A home 'mid thy foliage found,
But thy graceful boughs, all broken and bare,
    The wild winds are scattering round.

The storm-demon sent up his loudest shout
    When he levelled his bolt at thee,
When thy massy trunk and thy branches stout
    Were riven by the blast, old tree!
It has bowed to the dust thy stately form,
    Which for many an age defied
The rush and the roar of the midnight storm,
    When it swept through thy branches wide.

I have gazed on thee with a fond delight
    In childhood's happier day,
And watched the moonbeams...

Susanna Moodie

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

The Air

Oh, cast every care to the wind,
And dry, best beloved, the tear!
Secure, that thou ever shalt find,
The friend of thy bosom sincere.
Still friendship shall live in the breast of the brave,
And we'll love, the long day, where the forest-trees wave.

I have felt each emotion of bliss,
That affection the fondest can prove,
Have received on my lip the first kiss
Of thy holy and innocent love;
But perish each hope of delight,
Like the flashes of night on the sea,
If ever, though far from thy sight,
My soul is forgetful of thee!
Still the memory shall live in the breast of the brave,
How we loved, the long day, where the forest-trees wave.

Now bring my boy; may God above
Shower blessings on his head!
May he requite his mother's love,
And t...

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