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

gloom! So Virtue, a fair flower,

      Blooms on the rock of Care, and, though unseen,

      So smiles in cold seclusion; while, remote

      From the world's flaunting fellowship, it wears,

      Like hermit Piety, one smile of peace,

      In sickness or in health, in joy or tears,

      In summer days or cold adversity;

      And still it feels Heaven's breath, reviving, steal

      On its lone breast; feels the warm blessedness

      Of Heaven's own light about it, though its leaves

      Are wet with evening tears!

      Yonder island

      Seems not so desolate, nor frowns aloof,

      As if from human kind. The lighthouse there,

      Through the long winter night, shows its pale fire;

      And three forgotten mounds mark the rude graves,

      None knows of whom; but those of men who breathed,

      And bore their part in life, and looked to Heaven,

      As man looks now! – they died and left no name!

      Fancy might think, amid the wilderness

      Of waves, they sought to hide from human eyes

      All memory of their fortunes. Till the trump

      Of doom, they rest unknown. But mark that hill —

      Where Kewstoke seems to creep into the sea,

      Thy abbey, Woodspring, rose.13 Wild is the spot;

      And there three mailed murderers retired,

      To the last point of land. There they retired,

      And there they knelt upon the ground, and cried,

      Bury us 'mid the waves, where none may know

      The whispered secret of a deed of blood!

      No stone is o'er those graves: – the sullen tide,

      As it flows by and sounds along the shore,

      Seems moaningly to say, Pray for our souls!

      Nor other "Miserere" have they had

      At eve, nor other orison at morn.

      Thou hast put on thy mildest look to-day,

      Thou mighty element! Solemn, and still,

      And motionless, and touched with softer light,

      And without noise, lies all thy long expanse.

      Thou seemest now as calm, as if a child

      Might dally with thy playfulness, and stand,

      The weak winds lifting gently its light hair;

      Upon thy margin, watching one by one

      The long waves, breaking slow, with such a sound

      As Silence, in her dreamy mood, might love,

      When she more softly breathed, fearing a breath

      Might mar thy placidness!

      Oh, treachery!

      So still, and like a giant in his strength

      Reposing, didst thou lie, when the fond sire

      One moment looked, and saw his blithsome boys

      Gay on the sands, one moment, and the next,

      Heart-stricken and bereft, by the same surge,

      Stood in his desolation;14– for he looked,

      And thought how he had blessed them in their sleep,

      And the next moment they were borne away,

      Snatched by the circling surge, and seen no more;

      While morning shone, and not a ripple told

      How terrible and dark a deed was done!

      And so the seas were hushed, and not a cloud

      Marred the pale moonlight, save that, here and there,

      Wandering far off, some feathery shreds were seen,

      As the sole orb, above the lighthouse, held

      Its course in loveliness; and not a sound

      Came from the distant deep, save that, at times,

      Amid the noise of human merriment,

      The ear might seem to catch a low faint moan,

      A boding sound, as of a dying dirge,

      From the sunk rocks;15 while all was still beside,

      And every star seemed listening in its watch;

      When the gay packet-bark, to Erin bound,

      Resounding with the laugh and song, went on!

      Look! she is gone! O God! she is gone down,

      With her light-hearted company; gone down,

      And all at once is still, save, on the mast,

      Just peering o'er the waters, the wild shrieks

      Of three, at times, are heard! They, when the dead

      Were round them, floating on the moonlight wave,

      Kept there their dismal watch till morning dawned,

      And to the living world were then restored!

      PART SECOND

REFLECTIONS ON THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS STATE OF PARISHES, PAST AND PRESENT

      A shower, even while we gaze, steals o'er the scene,

      Shrouding it, and the sea-view is shout out,

      Save where, beyond the holms, one thread of light

      Hangs, and a pale and sunny stream shoots on,

      O'er the dim vapours, faint and far away,

      Like Hope's still light beyond the storms of Time.

      Come, let us rest a while in this rude seat!

      I was a child when first I heard the sound

      Of the great sea. 'Twas night, and journeying far,

      We were belated on our road, 'mid scenes

      New and unknown, – a mother and her child,

      Now first in this wide world a wanderer: —

      My father came, the pastor of the church16

      That crowns the high hill crest, above the sea;

      When, as the wheels went slow, and the still night

      Seemed listening, a low murmur met the ear,

      Not of the winds: – my mother softly said,

      Listen! it is the sea! With breathless awe,

      I heard the sound, and closer pressed her hand.

      Much of the sea, in infant wonderment,

      I oft had heard, and of the shipwrecked man,

      Who sees, on some lone isle, day after day,

      The sun sink o'er the solitude of waves,

      Like Crusoe; and the tears would start afresh,

      Whene'er my mother kissed my cheek, and told

      The story of that desolate wild man,

      And how the speaking bird, when he returned

      After long absence to his cave forlorn,

      Said, as in tones of human sympathy,

      Poor Robin Crusoe!

      Thoughts like these arose,

      When first I

13

The abbey was built by the descendants of Becket's murderers. Almost at the brink of the channel, being secured from it only by a narrow shelf of rocks called Swallow-clift, William de Courteneye, about 1210, founded a friary of Augustine monks at Worsprynge, or Woodspring, to the honour of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and St Thomas à Becket. William de Courteneye was a descendant of William de Traci, and was nearly related to the three other murderers of à Becket, to whom this monastery was dedicated.

14

See the late Sir Charles Elton's pathetic description of the deaths of his two sons at Weston, whilst bathing in his sight; one lost in his endeavour to save his brother.

15

Called "The Wolves," from their peculiar sound.

16

Uphill.