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

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 River Wainsbeck

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Song Of The Battle Of Hastings.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Little Mary's Linnet. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Inscriptions In The Gardens Of Bremhill Rectory.

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.

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

The Singer In The Prison

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought a convict Soul!

Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.

O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!

The sun was low in the west one winter day,
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls the keepers round,
Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes,)
All t...

Walt Whitman

The Prisoner For Debt

Look on him! through his dungeon grate,
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed,
His hand upholds his drooping head;
His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard,
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard;
And o'er his bony fingers flow
His long, dishevelled locks of snow.
No grateful fire before him glows,
And yet the winter's breath is chill;
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill!
Silent, save ever and anon,
A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip;
Oh, sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desolate!
Just God! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his pri...

John Greenleaf Whittier

Repentance

The fields which with covetous spirit we sold,
Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day,
Would have brought us more good than a burthen of gold,
Could we but have been as contented as they.

When the troublesome Tempter beset us, said I,
"Let him come, with his purse proudly grasped in his hand;
But, Allan, be true to me, Allan, we'll die
Before he shall go with an inch of the land!"

There dwelt we, as happy as birds in their bowers;
Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide;
We could do what we liked with the land, it was ours;
And for us the brook murmured that ran by its side.

But now we are strangers, go early or late;
And often, like one overburthened with sin,
With my hand on the latch of the half-opened gate,
I look at the fields, but I...

William Wordsworth

The Convalescent

. . . So I walked among the willows very quietly all night;
There was no moon at all, at all; no timid star alight;
There was no light at all, at all; I wint from tree to tree,
And I called him as his mother called, but he nivver answered me.

Oh I called him all the night-time, as I walked the wood alone;
And I listened and I listened, but I nivver heard a moan;
Then I found him at the dawnin', when the sorry sky was red:
I was lookin' for the livin', but I only found the dead.

Sure I know that it was Shamus by the silver cross he wore;
But the bugles they were callin', and I heard the cannon roar.
Oh I had no time to tarry, so I said a little prayer,
And I clasped his hands together, and I left him lyin' there.

Now the birds are singin', singin', and I'm home i...

Robert William Service

Lockswell.

Pure fount, that, welling from this wooded hill,
Dost wander forth, as into life's wide vale,
Thou to the traveller dost tell no tale
Of other years; a lone, unnoticed rill,
In thy forsaken track, unheard of men,
Melting thy own sweet music through the glen.
Time was when other sounds and songs arose;
When o'er the pensive scene, at evening's close,
The distant bell was heard; or the full chant,
At morn, came sounding high and jubilant;
Or, stealing on the wildered pilgrim's way,
The moonlight "Miserere" died away,
Like all things earthly.
Stranger, mark the spot;
No echoes of the chiding world intrude.
The structure rose and vanished; solitude
Possessed the woods again; old Time forgot,
Passing to wider spoil, its place and name.
Since then, even as...

William Lisle Bowles