The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 - With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes - by George Gilfillan

William Lisle Bowles

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• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
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• Langue: English

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Vol. 1, by William Lisle Bowles
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Title: The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1
With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes
by George Gilfillan
Author: William Lisle Bowles
Editor: George Gilfillan
Release Date: July 26, 2006 [EBook #18915]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES,
CANON OF ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, AND RECTOR OF BREMHILL.
With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and
Explanatory Notes,
BY THE
REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.VOL. I.
EDINBURGH: JAMES NICHOL, 9 NORTH BANK STREET.
LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO.
DUBLIN: W. ROBERTSON.
[Pg ii]M.DCCC.LV.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY,
PAUL'S WORK.
[Pg iii]
CONTENTS.
SONNETS AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
PAGE
SONNETS:—
At Tynemouth Priory, after a Tempestuous Voyage 7
Bamborough Castle 8
The River Wainsbeck 8
The Tweed Visited 9
On leaving a Village in Scotland 9
Evening 10
To the River Itchin 11
On Resigning a Scholarship of Trinity College, Oxford, and Retiring to a Country
Curacy 11
Dover Cliffs 12
On Landing at Ostend 12
The Bells of Ostend 13
The Rhine 13
Influence of Time on Grief 14
The Convent 14
The River Cherwell 15
On Entering Switzerland 15
Distant View of England from the Sea 16
Hope 16
To a Friend 17
Absence 17
Bereavement 18
Oxford Revisited 19
In Memoriam 19
On the Death of the Rev. William Benwell, M.A. 20
At Malvern 20
Netley Abbey 21
Associations 21
Music 22
Approach of Summer 22
At Oxford, 1786 23
At Dover, 1786 23
Retrospection 24
On Accidentally Meeting a Lady, now no more 24
On hearing "The Messiah" performed in Gloucester Cathedral, Sept. 18, 1835 25
Woodspring Abbey, 1836 26
Lacock Nunnery, 1837 26Lacock Nunnery, 1837 26
On a Beautiful Landscape 27
Art and Nature: the Bridge between Clifton and Leigh Woods 27
Picture of an Old Man 28
Picture of a Young Lady 29
Hour-glass and Bible 29
Milton. Two Sonnets on the bust of Milton, in Youth and Age, at Stourhead 30
To Sir Walter Scott 31

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS:—
Elegy written at the Hotwells, Bristol 32
Monody on Henry Headley 36
Howard's Account of Lazarettos 37
The Grave of Howard 42
Shakspeare 46
Abbe Thule's Lament for his Son Prince Le Boo 49
Southampton Water 51
The Philanthropic Society 52
The Dying Slave 58
Song of the American Indian 60
Monody, written at Matlock 61
The Right Honourable Edmund Burke 67
On Leaving a Place of Residence 72
Elegiac Stanzas written during Sickness at Bath 73
On leaving Winchester School 77
Hope: an Allegorical Sketch 77
The Battle of the Nile 88
[Pg iv]A Garden-Seat at Home 94
In Horto Rev. J. Still 95
Greenwich Hospital 95
A Rustic Seat near the Sea 96
Wardour Castle 96
Pole-vellum, Cornwall 97
On a Beautiful Spring 98
On a Cenotaph to the Memory of Lieut-Col. Isaac 99
Translation of a Latin Poem, by Rev. Newton Ogle 100
St Michael's Mount 101
On an Unfortunate and Beautiful Woman 111
Hymn to Woden 113
Coombe-Ellen 115
Summer Evening at Home 125
Winter Evening at Home 126
The Spirit of Navigation 127
Water-party on Beaulieu River, in the New Forest 134
Monody on the Death of Dr Warton 135
Epitaph on H. Walmsley, Esq., in Alverstoke Church, Hants 141
Age 142
On a Landscape by Rubens 142
The Harp, and Despair, of Cowper 151
Stanzas for Music 152
Music 152
Absence 153
Fairy Sketch 154
Inscription 155
Pictures from Theocritus 156
Sketches in the Exhibition, 1805 161
Do. in the Exhibition, 1807 162
Southampton Castle 164
The Winds 166
On William Sommers of Bremhill 169
The Visionary Boy 170
Cadland, Southampton River 180
The Last Song of Camoens 182
The Sylph of Summer 184
The Harp of Hoel 201
Avenue in Savernake Forest 215
Dirge of Nelson 216
Death of Captain Cooke, of "The Bellerophon" 217
Battle of Corruna 218
Sketch from Bowden Hill after Sickness 219
Sun-Dial in the Churchyard of Bremhill 223

THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY:
A Descriptive and Historical Poem 225 A Descriptive and Historical Poem 225
Book the First 231
Book the Second 245
Book the Third 258
Book the Fourth 266
Book the Fifth 285

THE MISSIONARY 295
Introduction 297
Canto First 298
Canto Second 309
Canto Third 318
Canto Fourth 330
Canto Fifth 339
Canto Sixth 344
Canto Seventh 350
Canton Eighth 359
The Memoir and Critical Dissertation being unavoidably delayed, will be
[Pg 1]prefixed to Vol. II.
PREFACE.
A Ninth Edition of the following Poems having been called for by the public, the
author is induced to say a few words, particularly concerning those which,
under the name of Sonnets, describe his personal feelings.
They can be considered in no other light than as exhibiting occasional
reflections which naturally arose in his mind, chiefly during various excursions,
undertaken to relieve, at the time, depression of spirits. They were, therefore, in
general, suggested by the scenes before them; and wherever such scenes
appeared to harmonise with his disposition at the moment, the sentiments were
involuntarily prompted.
Numberless poetical trifles of the same kind have occurred to him, when
perhaps, in his solitary rambles, he has been "chewing the cud of sweet and
bitter fancy;" but they have been forgotten as he left the places which gave rise
to them; and the greater part of those originally committed to the press were
written down, for the first time, from memory.
This is nothing to the public; but it may serve in some measure to obviate the
common remark on melancholy poetry, that it has been very often gravely
composed, when possibly the heart of the writer had very little share in the
distress he chose to describe.
But there is a great difference between natural and fabricated feelings, even in
poetry. To which of these two characters the poems before the reader belong,
the author leaves those who have felt sensations of sorrow to judge.
They who know him, know the occasions of them to have been real; to the
public he might only mention the sudden death of a deserving young woman,
with whom,
... Sperabat longos heu! ducere soles,
[1]Et fido acclinis consenuisse sinu.
Donhead, April 1805.[1] The early editions of these Sonnets, 1791, were dedicated to the
[Pg 2]Reverend Newton Ogle, D.D., Dean of Winchester.
INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1837.
To account for the variations which may be remarked in this last edition of my
Sonnets, from that which was first published fifty years ago, it may be proper to
state, that to the best of my recollection, they now appear nearly as they were
originally composed in my solitary hours; when, in youth a wanderer among
distant scenes, I sought forgetfulness of the first disappointment in early
affections.
Delicacy even now, though the grave has long closed over the beloved object,
would forbid entering on a detail of the peculiar circumstances in early life, and
the anguish which occasioned these poetical meditations. In fact, I never
thought of writing them down at the time, and many had escaped my
[2]recollection; but three years after my return to England, on my way to the
banks of Cherwell, where
"I bade the pipe farewell, and that sad lay
Whose music, on my melancholy way,
I wooed,"
passing through Bath, I wrote down all I could recollect of these effusions, most
elaborately mending the versification from the natural flow of music in which
they occurred to me, and having thus corrected and written them out, took them
myself to the late Mr Cruttwell, with the name of "Fourteen Sonnets, written
chiefly on Picturesque Spots during a Journey."
I had three times knocked at this amiable printer's door, whose kind smile I still
recollect; and at last, with much hesitation, ventured to unfold my message; it
was to inquire whether he would give any thing for "Fourteen Sonnets," to be
[3]published with or without the name. He at once declined the purchase, and
informed me he doubted very much whether the publication would repay the
expense of printing, which would come to about five pounds. It was at last
[Pg 3]determined one hundred copies, in quarto, should be published as a kind of
"forlorn hope;" and these "Fourteen Sonnets" I left to their fate and thought no
more of getting rich by poetry! In fact, I owed the most I ever owed at Oxford, at
[4]this time, namely, seventy pounds; and knowing my father's