Poor Man's Grave. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

Old Andrews of the hut is dead,
And many a child appears,
Whilst slowly "dust to dust" is read,
Around his grave in tears.

A good man gone where small and great,
And poor, and high and low,
And Dives, proud in worldly state,
And Lazarus, must go.

May we among the just be found,
Though short our sojourn here,
Who, when the trump of death shall sound,
May hear it without fear!

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

On Landing At Ostend

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Cadland,[1] Southampton River.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The Egyptian Tomb.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The River Wainsbeck

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.

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, lik...

William Lisle Bowles

My Father's Grave. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

    My father's grave, I heard her say,
And marked a stealing tear;
Oh, no! I would not go away,
My father's grave is here!

    A thousand thronging sympathies
The lonely spot endear,
And every eve remembrance sighs,
My father's grave is here!

    Some sudden tears unbidden start,
As spring's gay birds I hear,
For all things whisper to my heart,
My father's grave is here!

    Young hope may blend each colour gay,
And fairer views appear;
But, no! I will not go away,
My father's grave is here!

William Lisle Bowles

The Grave Of Bishop Ken.

    On yonder heap of earth forlorn,
Where Ken his place of burial chose,
Peacefully shine, O Sabbath morn!
And, eve, with gentlest hush, repose.

    To him is reared no marble tomb,
Within the dim cathedral fane;
But some faint flowers, of summer bloom,
And silent falls the wintry rain.

    No village monumental stone
Records a verse, a date, a name -
What boots it? when thy task is done,
Christian, how vain the sound of fame!

    Oh! far more grateful to thy God,
The voices of poor children rise,
Who hasten o'er the dewy sod,
"To pay their morning sacrifice."[207]

    And can we listen to their hymn,
Heard, haply, when the evening knell
Sounds, where the village brow is dim,
As if to bid the world farewell!

 ...

William Lisle Bowles

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

Luke Andrews is transported! Never more
To see his sisters, mother, or the shore
Of his own country! Never more to see
The cottage smoke rise o'er the sheltering tree;
Never again beneath the morning beam,
Jocund, to drive afield his tinkling team!
When first the path of idleness he trod,
And left on Sabbath-days the house of God,
The fellowship of wild companions kept,
How oft at night his mother waked and wept!
When he is homeless, and far off at sea,
She now will sigh, Does he remember me!
Remember her! alas, the thought is vain!
She ne'er will see him in this world again.
And she is broken-hearted; but her trust,
Is still in Him whose works and ways are just.
Oh! may we still revere His dread command,
And die remembered in our native land!

William Lisle Bowles

The Little Grave.

I.

    A little mound of earth
    Is all the land I own:
    Death gave it me, - five feet by three,
    And mark'd it with a stone.


II.

    My home, my garden-grave,
    Where most I long to go!
    The ground is mine by right divine,
    And Heaven will have it so.


III.

    For here my darling sleeps,
    Unseen, - arrayed in white, -
    And o'er the grass the breezes pass,
    And stars look down at night.


IV.

    Here Beauty, Love, and Joy,
    With her in silence dwell,
    As Eastern slaves are thrown in graves
    Of kings remember'd well.


V.

    But here let no man come,
    My mourning rights to sever.
    Who lieth here is cold and dumb....

Eric Mackay

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.

I heard the village bells, with gladso...

William Lisle Bowles