The Rhine

'Twas morn, and beauteous on the mountain's brow
(Hung with the clusters of the bending vine)
Shone in the early light, when on the Rhine
We bounded, and the white waves round the prow
In murmurs parted: varying as we go,
Lo! the woods open, and the rocks retire,
As some gray convent-wall or glistening spire
'Mid the bright landscape's track unfolding slow!
Here dark, with furrowed aspect, like Despair,
Frowns the bleak cliff! There on the woodland's side
The shadowy sunshine pours its streaming tide;
Whilst Hope, enchanted with the scene so fair,
Counts not the hours of a long summer's day,
Nor heeds how fast the prospect winds away.

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

Stanzas For Music

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

Spring - Cuckoo. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

On The Funeral Of Charles The First, At Night, In St George's Chapel, Windsor.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

To Lady Valletort, On Hearing Her Sing "Gloria In Excelsis," With Three Other Young Ladies, At Lacock Abbey, October 1831.

William Lisle Bowles, Simple Poetry

English

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Epistle From The Rhine.

To Y ---, with a bowl of Bohemian glass.


From rocky hills, where climbs the vine;
Where on his waves the wandering Rhine
Sees imaged ruins, towns and towers,
Bare mountain scalps, green forest bowers;
From that broad land of poetry,
Wild legend, noble history,
This token many a day bore I,
To lay it at your feet, dear Y - -.

Little the stupid bowl will tell
Of all that on its way befell,
Since from old Frankfort's free domain,
Where smiling vineyards skirt the main,
It took its way; what sunsets red
Their splendours o'er the mountains shed,
How the blue Taunus' distant height
Like hills of fire gave back the light,
And how, on river, rock, and sky,
The sun declined so tenderly,
That o'er the scene white moonlight fell,
Ere...

Frances Anne Kemble

On The Rhine

Vain is the effort to forget.
Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moon-lit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go:
But ah, not yet! not yet!

Vain is the agony of grief.
Tis true, indeed, an iron knot
Ties straitly up from mine thy lot,
And were it snapt, thou lovst me not!
But is despair relief?

Awhile let me with thought have done;
And as this brimmd unwrinkled Rhine
And that far purple mountain line
Lie sweetly in the look divine
Of the slow-sinking sun;

So let me lie, and calm as they
Let beam upon my inward view
Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue,
Eyes too expressive to be blue,
Too lovely to be grey.

Ah Quiet, all things feel thy balm!
Those blue hills too, this rivers flow,
Were re...

Matthew Arnold

Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - VIII. - In A Carriage, Upon The Banks Of The Rhine

Amid this dance of objects sadness steals
O'er the defrauded heart while sweeping by,
As in a fit of Thespian jollity,
Beneath her vine-leaf crown the green Earth reels:
Backward, in rapid evanescence, wheels
The venerable pageantry of Time,
Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime,
And what the Dell unwillingly reveals
Of lurking cloistral arch, through trees espied
Near the bright River's edge. Yet why repine?
To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze
Such sweet wayfaring of life's spring the pride,
Her summer's faithful joy, 'that' still is mine,
And in fit measure cheers autumnal days.

William Wordsworth

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

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

To The River Rhone

Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower
    In chambers purple with the Alpine glow,
    Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow
    And rocked by tempests!--at the appointed hour
Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower,
    With clang and clink of harness dost thou go
    To meet thy vassal torrents, that below
    Rush to receive thee and obey thy power.
And now thou movest in triumphal march,
    A king among the rivers!    On thy way
    A hundred towns await and welcome thee;
Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch,
    Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay,
    And fleets attend thy progress to the sea!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow