The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2

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Bowles William Lisle. The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2

MEMOIR AND CRITICISM ON THE WORKS OF THE REV. W. L. BOWLES

BANWELL HILL; A LAY OF THE SEVERN SEA

PREFACE.1

BANWELL HILL

PART FIRST

PART SECOND

PART THIRD

PART FOURTH

PART FIFTH

THE GRAVE OF THE LAST SAXON; OR, THE LEGEND OF THE CURFEW

INTRODUCTION

THE GRAVE OF THE LAST SAXON

ST JOHN IN PATMOS

ADVERTISEMENT

ST JOHN IN PATMOS

PART FIRST

PART SECOND

PART THIRD

PART FOURTH

PART FIFTH

PART SIXTH

APOCALYPTIC HORSES

THE SORROWS OF SWITZERLAND.188

THE VILLAGER'S VERSE-BOOK

PATH OF LIFE

SUNRISE

SUMMER'S EVENING

SPRING – CUCKOO

SHEEPFOLD

HEN AND CHICKENS

POOR MAN'S GRAVE

SABBATH MORNING

THE PRIMROSE

THE HOUR-GLASS

THE BIRD'S NEST

THE MOWER

SATURDAY NIGHT

SUNDAY NIGHT

THE APRIL SHOWER

THE ROBIN REDBREAST

THE BUTTERFLY AND THE BEE

THE GLOW-WORM

THE CONVICT

THE BLIND GRANDFATHER

THE OLD LABOURER

THE SWAN

THE VILLAGE BELLS

THE CAGED BIRD

THE DUTIFUL CHILD

LITTLE MARY'S LINNET

THE SHEPHERD AND HIS DOG

THE WITHERED LEAF

THE GIPSY'S TENT

MY FATHER'S GRAVE

THE SWALLOW AND THE RED-BREAST

THE BLIND MAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL

THE BLIND SOLDIER AND HIS DAUGHTER

THE LITTLE SWEEP

THE BLACKSMITH

HYMN FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE

THE CHILDREN'S HYMN FOR THEIR PATRONESS

EASTER DAY

CHRISTMAS HYMN

SONG OF THE CID.194

POEMS, INEDITED, UNPUBLISHED, ETC

THE SANCTUARY: A DRAMATIC SKETCH

GLASTONBURY ABBEY AND WELLS CATHEDRAL

ON THE FUNERAL OF CHARLES THE FIRST, AT NIGHT, IN ST GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR

ON SEEING PLANTS IN THE WINDOWS OF SETH WARD'S COLLEGE,

MORLEY'S FAREWELL TO THE COTTAGE OF ISAAK WALTON

THE GRAVE OF BISHOP KEN

THE LEGEND OF ST CECILIA AND THE ANGEL

SUPPOSED ADDRESS TO BISHOP KEN.208

ON AN ECLIPSE OF THE MOON AT MIDNIGHT

TO LADY VALLETORT, ON HEARING HER SING "GLORIA IN EXCELSIS," WITH THREE OTHER YOUNG LADIES, AT LACOCK ABBEY, OCTOBER 1831

ON SEEING A BUST OF R. B. SHERIDAN, FROM A CAST TAKEN AFTER DEATH.209

RETURN OF GEORGE III. TO WINDSOR CASTLE

ON MEETING SOME FRIENDS OF YOUTH AT CHELTENHAM, FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE WE PARTED AT OXFORD

THE LAY OF TALBOT, THE TROUBADOUR.210

THE ARK: A POEM FOR MUSIC

WRITTEN AFTER THE CONSECRATION OF THE NEW CHURCH AT KINGSWOOD

ON THE DEATH OF DR BURGESS, THE LATE BISHOP OF SALISBURY

LINES WRITTEN ON FONTHILL ABBEY

EPITAPH ON BENJAMIN TREMLYN, AN OLD SOLDIER, BURIED IN BREMHILL CHURCHYARD AT THE AGE OF 92

EPITAPH ON ROBERT SOUTHEY

SONNET

ON FIRST HEARING CARADORI SING

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL

LOCKSWELL

ON MOZART

EPITAPH ON JOHN HARDING, IN THE CHURCHYARD OF BREMHILL

ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM LINLEY, ESQ., THE COMPOSER OF THE MUSIC OF "THE DUENNA," ETC

INSCRIBED TO THE MARCHIONESS OF LANSDOWNE

HYMN FOR MUSIC, AFTER THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

INSCRIPTIONS IN THE GARDENS OF BREMHILL RECTORY

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The estimation of a Poem of this nature must depend, first, on its arrangement, plan, and disposition; secondly, on the judgment, propriety, and feeling with which – in just and proper succession and relief – picture, pathos, moral and religious reflections, historical notices, or affecting incidents, are interwoven. The reader will, in the next place, attend to the versification, or music, in which the thoughts are conveyed. Shakspeare and Milton are the great masters of the verse I have adopted. But who can be heard after them? The reader, however, will at least find no specimens of sonorous harmony ending with such significant words as "of," "and," "if," "but," etc of which we have had lately some splendid examples. I would therefore only request of him to observe, that when such passages occur in this poem as "vanishing," "hush!" etc. it was from design, and not from want of ear.2

So far respecting the plan, the execution, the versification, and style. As to the sentiments conveyed in this poem, and in the notes, I must explicitly declare, that when I am convinced, as a clergyman and a magistrate, that there has been an increase of crime, owing, among other causes, to the system pursued by some "nominal Christians," who will not preach "these three" (faith, hope, and charity) according to the order of St Paul, but keep two of these graces, and the greatest of all, out of sight, upon any human plea or pretension; when they do not preach, "Add to your faith virtue;" when they will not preach, Christ died for the sins of "the world, and not for ours only;" when, from any pleas of their own, or persuaded by any sophistry or faction, they become, most emphatically, "dumb dogs" to the sublime and affecting moral parts of that gospel which they have engaged before God to deliver; and above all, when crimes, as I am verily persuaded have been, are, and must be, the consequence of such public preaching, – leaving others to "stand or fall" to their own God; I shall be guided by my own understanding, and the plain Word of God, as I find it earnestly, simply, beautifully, and divinely set before me by Christ and his Apostles; and so feeling, I shall as fearlessly deliver my own opinions, being assured, whether popular or unpopular, whether they offend this man or that, this sect or that sect, they will not easily be shaken.

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"From the circumstances premised, you will probably anticipate my thoughts on these remarkable phenomena; if not, they are as follow: – I consider the cavern to have been formed at the period of the original deposition and consolidation of the matter constituting the mountain limestone in which it is found; possibly by the agency of some elastic gas, imprisoned in the mass, which prevented the approximation of its particles to each other; or by some unaccountable interruption to the operation of the usual laws of its crystallization; – that, for a long succession of ages anterior to the Deluge, and previously to man's inhabiting the colder regions of the earth, Banwell Cave had been inhabited by successive generations of beasts of prey; which, as hunger dictated, issued from their den, pursued and slaughtered the gregarious animals, or wilder quadrupeds, in its neighbourhood; and dragged them, either bodily or piecemeal, to this retreat, in order to feast upon them at leisure, and undisturbed; – that the bottom of the cavern thus became a kind of charnel-house, of various and unnumbered beasts; – that this scene of excursive carnage continued till 'the flood came,' blending 'the oppressor with the oppressed,' and mixing the hideous furniture of the den with a quantity of extraneous matter, brought from the adjoining shore, and subjacent lands, by the waters of the Deluge, which rolled, surging (as Kirwan imagines), from the north-western quarter; – that, previously to this total submersion, as the flood increased on the lower grounds, the animals which fed upon them ascended the heights of Mendip, to escape impending death; and with panic rushed (as many as could gain entrance) into this dwelling-place of their worst enemies; – that numberless birds also, terrified by the elemental tumult, flew into the same den, as a place of temporary refuge; – that the interior of the cavern was speedilly filled by the roaring Deluge, whose waters, dashing and crushing the various substances which they embraced, against the rugged rocks, or against each other; and continuing this violent and incessant action for at least three months, at length tore asunder every connected form, separated every skeleton, and produced that confusion of substances, that scene of disjecta membra, that mixture and disjunction of bones, which were apparent on the first inspection of the cavern; and which are now visible in that part of it which has been hitherto untouched."

Respecting the language of the Poem, I had nearly forgotten one remark. In almost all the local poems I have read, there is a confusion of the following nature. A local descriptive poem must consist, first, of the graphic view of the scenery around the spot from whence the view is taken; and, secondly, of the reflections and feelings which that view may be supposed to excite. The feelings of the heart naturally associate themselves with the idea of the tones of the supposed poetical harp; but external scenes are the province of the pencil, for the harp cannot paint woods and hills, and therefore, in almost all descriptive poems, the pencil and the lyre clash. Hence, in one page, the poet speaks of his lyre, and in the next, when he leaves feelings to paint to the eye, before the harp is out of the hand, he turns to the pencil! This fault is almost inevitable; the reader, therefore, will see in the first page of this Poem, that the graphic pencil is assumed, when the tones of the harp were inappropriate.

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