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

Hark to the mower's whistling blade!
How steadily he mows!
The grass is heaped, the daisies fade,
All scattered as he goes.

The flowers of life may bloom and fade,
But He in whom I trust,
Though cold and in my grave-clothes laid,
Can raise me from the dust.

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

Approach Of Summer

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

The Village Bells. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Oxford Revisited

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

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

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

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

The Old Labourer. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

Are you not tired, you poor old man!
The drops are on your brow;
Your labour with the sun began,
And you are labouring now!

I murmur not to dig the soil,
For I have heard it read,
That man by industry and toil
Must eat his daily bread.

The lark awakes me with his song,
That hails the morning gray,
And when I mourn for human wrong,
I think of God, and pray.

Let worldlings waste their time and health,
And try each vain delight;
They cannot buy, with all their wealth,
The labourer's rest at night.

William Lisle Bowles

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

WRITTEN FOR JAMES MONTGOMERY'S CHIMNEY-SWEEPER'S ALBUM.

They sing of the poor sailor-boy, who wanders o'er the deep,
But few there are who think upon the friendless little sweep!
In darkness to his dreary toil, through winter's frost and snows,
When the keen north wind is piping shrill, the shivering urchin goes.

He has no father; and from grief, his mother's eyes are dim,
And none beside, in all the world, awakes to pray for him;
For him no summer Sundays smile, no health is in the breeze;
His mind is dark as his face, a prey to dire disease.[192]

O English gentlemen! your hearts have bled for the black slave, -
You heard his melancholy moan from the Atlantic wave;
He thought upon his father's land, and cried, A long farewell,
But blessed you, gazing at the sun...

William Lisle Bowles

The Child An' The Mowers

O aye! they had woone child bezide,
An' a finer your eyes never met,
Twer a dear little fellow that died
In the summer that come wi' such het;
By the mowers, too thoughtless in fun,
He wer then a-zent off vrom our eyes,
Vrom the light ov the dew-dryen zun,
Aye! vrom days under the blue-hollow'd skies.

He went out to the mowers in meade,
When the zun wer a-rose to his height,
An' the men wer a-swingen the snead,
Wi' their earms in white sleeves, left an' right;
An' out there, as they rested at noon,
O! they drench'd en vrom eale-horns too deep,
Till his thoughts wer a-drown'd in a swoon;
Aye! his life wer a-smother'd in sleep.

Then they laid en there-right on the ground,
On a grass-heap, a-zweltren wi'het,
Wi' his heair all a-wetted around...

William Barnes

The Withered Leaf. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

Oh! mark the withered leaves that fall
In silence to the ground;
Upon the human heart they call,
And preach without a sound.

They say, So passes man's brief year!
To-day, his green leaves wave;
To-morrow, changed by time, and sere,
He drops into the grave.

Let Wisdom be our sole concern,
Since life's green days are brief!
And faith and heavenly hope shall learn
A lesson from the LEAF.

William Lisle Bowles