William Lisle Bowles Poems

I turn these leaves with thronging thoughts, and say,
Alas! how many friends of youth are dead;
How many visions of fair hope have fled,
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How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal!
As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze
Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease,
So piercing to my heart their force I feel!
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Evening! as slow thy placid shades descend,
Veiling with gentlest hush the landscape still,
The lonely battlement, the farthest hill
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The castle clock had tolled midnight:
With mattock and with spade,
And silent, by the torches' light,
His corse in earth we laid.
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I never hear the sound of thy glad bells,
Oxford, and chime harmonious, but I say,
Sighing to think how time has worn away,
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Come to these peaceful seats, and think no more
Of cold, of midnight watchings, or the roar
Of Ocean, tossing on his restless bed!
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As one who, long by wasting sickness worn,
Weary has watched the lingering night, and heard
Unmoved the carol of the matin bird
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If rich designs of sumptuous art may please,
Or Nature's loftier views, august and old,
Stranger! behold this spreading scene;--behold
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Stranger, stay, nor wish to climb
The heights of yonder hills sublime;
For there strange shapes and spirits dwell,
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No, I never, till life and its shadows shall end,
Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend!
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