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

God said, Let there be light, and there was light! At once the glorious sun, at his command, From space illimitable, void and dark, Sprang jubilant, and angel hierarchies, Whose...

Itchin! when I behold thy banks again, Thy crumbling margin, and thy silver breast, On which the self-same tints still seem to rest, Why feels my heart a shivering sense of pain...

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...

The tide of fate rolls on!--heart-pierced and pale, The gallant soldier lies,[144] nor aught avail, The shield, the sword, the spirit of the brave, From rapine's armed hand thy...

At this sad hour, when no harsh thoughts intrude 21 To mar the melancholy mind's repose, When I am left to night and solitude, And languid life seems verging to its close;

Call the strange spirit that abides unseen In wilds, and wastes, and shaggy solitudes, And bid his dim hand lead thee through these scenes That burst immense around! By mountain...

Nay, let us gaze, ev'n till the sense is full, Upon the rich creation, shadowed so That not great Nature, in her loftiest pomp Of living beauty, ever on the sight Rose more magn...

The second moon had now begun to wane, Since bold Valdivia left the southern plain; Goal of his labours, Penco's port and bay, Far gleaming to the summer sunset lay. The wayworn...

While summer airs scarce breathe along the tide, Oft pausing, up the mountain's craggy side We climb, how beautiful, how still, how clear, The scenes that stretch around! The ro...

[127] A curious effect of vision in the air from refraction, by which objects appear distinct, and as real, which are below the horizon. This often appears on the coast of Italy...

Awake a louder and a loftier strain! Beloved harp, whose tones have oft beguiled My solitary sorrows, when I left The scene of happier hours, and wandered far, A pale and droopi...

Frown ever opposite, the angel cried, Who, with an earthquake's might and giant hand, Severed these riven rocks, and bade them stand Severed for ever! The vast ocean-tide, Leavi...

Oh! lend that lute, sweet Archimage, to me! Enough of care and heaviness The weary lids of life depress, And doubly blest that gentle heart shall be, That wooes of poesy the vis...

Such are thy views, DISCOVERY! The great world Rolls to thine eye revealed; to thee the Deep Submits its awful empire; Industry Awakes, and Commerce to the echoing marts From ea...

Come,--for the sun yet hangs above the bay,-- And whilst our time may brook a brief delay With other thoughts, and, haply with a tear, An old man's tale of sorrow thou shalt hea...

Far in the centre of the deepest wood, The assembled fathers of their country stood. 'Twas midnight now; the pine-wood fire burned red, And to the leaves a shadowy glimmer sprea...

Stand on the gleaming Pharos,[180] and aloud Shout, Commerce, to the kingdoms of the earth; Shout, for thy golden portals are set wide, And all thy streamers o'er the surge, alo...

Oh for a view, as from that cloudless height Where the great Patriarch gazed upon the world, His offspring's future seat, back on the vale Of years departed! We might then behol...

Thus slumbering long upon the dreamy verge Of instinct, see, he rouses from his trance! Faint, and as glimmering yet, the Arts emerge, One after one, from darkness, and advance,...

Beneath aÎrial cliffs, and glittering snows, The rush-roof of an aged warrior rose, Chief of the mountain tribes: high overhead, The Andes, wild and desolate, were spread, Where...

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...

[226] It may be necessary here to say, that whenever the Spaniards founded a city, after the immediate walls of defence, their first object was to build a church, and to have, w...

He left us;--we, the hour of parting come, To Prasidamus' hospitable home, Myself and Eucritus, together wend, With young Amynticus, our blooming friend: There, all delighted, t...

Spirit of Death! whose outstretched pennons dread Wave o'er the world beneath their shadow spread; Who darkly speedest on thy destined way, Midst shrieks and cries, and sounds o...

When Want, with wasted mien and haggard eye, Retires in silence to her cell to die; When o'er her child she hangs with speechless dread, Faint and despairing of to-morrow's brea...

My heart has sighed in secret, when I thought That the dark tide of time might one day close, England, o'er thee, as long since it has closed On Egypt and on Tyre: that ages hen...

As thus the Genius of the Andes spoke, The trembling mountain heaved with darker smoke; Lightnings, and phantom-forms, by fits appeared; His mighty voice far off Osorno heard; T...

Awful Genius of the land! Who (thy reign of glory closed) By marble wrecks, half-hid in sand, Hast mournfully reposed; Who long, amid the wasteful desert wide, Hast loved with d...

He placed the rude inscription on her stone, Which he with faltering hands had graved, and soon Himself beside it sunk--yet ere he died, Faintly he spoke: If ever ye shall hear,...