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 to her age a comfort prove,
When I perhaps am dead!

The beams of morn on his helm did play,
And aloud the bugle blew,
Then he leaped on his harnessed steed of gray,
And sighed to the winds as he galloped{f} away,
Adieu, my heart's love, adieu!

And now he has joined the warrior train
Of knights and barons bold,
That, bound to Salem's holy plain,
Across the gently-swelling main,
Their course exulting hold.

With a cross of gold, as on they passed,
The crimson streamers flew;
The shields hung glittering round the mast,
And on the waves a radiance cast,
Whilst all the trumpets blew.

O'er the Severn-surge, in long array,
So, the proud galleys went,
Till soon, as dissolved in ether gray,
The woods, and the shores, and the Holms^[1] steal away,
And the long blue hills of Gwent.

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

Translation{D} Of A Latin Poem - By The Rev. Newton Ogle, Dean Of Manchester.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

To Sir Walter Scott. -

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

To A Friend

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Thyrsis

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

English

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The Harp Of Hoel.[1]

    It was a high and holy sight,
    When Baldwin^[2] and his train,
    With cross and crosier gleaming bright,
    Came chanting slow the solemn rite,
    To Gwentland's^[3] pleasant plain.

    High waved before, in crimson pride,
    The banner of the Cross;
    The silver rood was then descried,
    While deacon youths, from side to side,
    The fuming censer toss.

    The monks went two and two along,
    And winding through the glade,
    Sang, as they passed, a holy song,
    And harps and citterns, 'mid the throng,
    A mingled music made.

    They ceased; when lifting high his hand,
    The white-robed prelate cried:
    Arise, arise, at Christ's command,
    To fight for his name in the Holy Land,

William Lisle Bowles

Inscribed To The Rev. W. Howley.[1]

    The morning wakes in shadowy mantle gray,
    The darksome woods their glimmering skirts unfold,
    Prone from the cliff the falcon wheels her way,
    And long and loud the bell's slow chime is tolled.

    The reddening light gains fast upon the skies,
    And far away the glistening vapours sail,
    Down the rough steep the accustomed hedger hies,
    And the stream winds in brightness through the vale.

    Mark how those riven rocks on either shore
    Uplift their bleak and furrowed fronts on high;
    How proudly desolate their foreheads hoar,
    That meet the earliest sunbeams of the sky!

    Bound for yon dusky mart,^[2] with pennants gay,
    The tall bark, on the winding water's line,
    Between the riven cliffs slow plies he...

William Lisle Bowles

Elegiac Stanzas - Written During Sickness At Bath.

    When I lie musing on my bed alone,
    And listen to the wintry waterfall;^[1]
    And many moments that are past and gone,
    Moments of sunshine and of joy, recall;

    Though the long night is dark and damp around,
    And no still star hangs out its friendly flame;
    And the winds sweep the sash with sullen sound,
    And freezing palsy creeps o'er all my frame;

    I catch consoling phantasies that spring
    From the thick gloom, and as the night airs beat,
    They touch my heart, like wind-swift wires^[2] that ring
    In mournful modulations, strange and sweet.

    Was it the voice of thee, my buried friend?
    Was it the whispered vow of faithful love?
    Do I in Knoyle's green shades thy steps attend,
    An...

William Lisle Bowles

The Dying Slave

Faint-gazing on the burning orb of day,
When Afric's injured son expiring lay,
His forehead cold, his labouring bosom bare,
His dewy temples, and his sable hair,
His poor companions kissed, and cried aloud,
Rejoicing, whilst his head in peace he bowed:
Now thy long, long task is done,
Swiftly, brother, wilt thou run,
Ere to-morrow's golden beam
Glitter on thy parent stream,
Swiftly the delights to share,
The feast of joy that waits thee there.
Swiftly, brother, wilt thou ride
O'er the long and stormy tide,
Fleeter than the hurricane,
Till thou see'st those scenes again,
Where thy father's hut was reared,
Where thy mother's voice was heard;
Where thy infant brothers played
Beneath the fragrant citron shade;
Where through green savannahs wide...

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

Southampton Castle.[1] - Inscribed To The Marquis Of Lansdowne.

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
    How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
    The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
    How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured throu...

William Lisle Bowles