The poetical works of William Lisle Bowles :: :: University of Virginia Library

I was a child of sorrow when I passed,
Sweet country, through your rocky valleys last;
For one whom I had loved, whom I had pressed
With honest, ardent passion to my breast,
Was to another vowed: I heard the tale,
And to the earth sank heartless, faint, and pale.
Till that sad hour when every hope had flown,
I thought she lived for me, and me alone;
Yet did I not, though pangs my heart must rend,
Prove to thy weakness a sustaining friend?
Did I not bid thee, never, never more
Or think of me or mine? As firm I swore
To cast away the dream, and bury deep,
As in oblivion of the dead man's sleep,
All that once soothed, and from the soul to tear
Each longing wish that youth had cherished there.

But when 'twas midnight, to the woods I hied,
Despairing, and with frantic anguish cried:
Oh, had relentless death with instant dart
Smitten and snatched thee from my bleeding heart;
Through life had niggard fortune bid us pine,
And withered with despair thy hopes and mine;
Yes, yes, I could have borne it; but to see
The accusing tear, and know it falls for me;
Oh cease the thought—a long and last farewell—
We must forget—nor shall my soul rebel!
Then to my country's cliffs I bade adieu,
And what my sad heart felt God only knew.
Helvetia, thy rude scenes, a drooping guest,
I sought, and sorrowing sought a spot of rest.

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Through many a mountain pass and shaggy vale
I roamed an exile, passion-crazed and pale.
I saw your clouded heights sublime impend,
I heard your foaming cataracts descend;
And oft the rugged scene my heart endued
With a strange, sad, distempered fortitude;
Oft on the lake's green marge I lay reclined,
Murmuring my moody fancies to the wind;
But when some hanging hamlet I surveyed,
A wood-cot peeping in the sheltered glade,
A tear, perforce, would steal; and, as my eye
Fondly reverted to the days gone by,
How blest, I cried, remote from every care,
To rest with her we loved, forgotten there!
Then soft, methought, from the sequestered grove,
I heard the song of happiness and love:

Come to these scenes of peace,
Where, to rivers murmuring,
The sweet birds all the summer sing,
Where cares, and toil, and sadness cease!
Stranger, does thy heart deplore
Friends whom thou wilt see no more;
Does thy wounded spirit prove
Pangs of hopeless, severed love?
Thee the stream that gushes clear,
Thee the birds that carol near,
Shall soothe, as silent thou dost lie,
And dream of their wild lullaby;
Come to bless these scenes of peace,
Where cares, and toil, and sadness cease!

Start from the feeble dream! The woodland shed
Flames, and the tenants of that vale are dead!

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All dark the torrent of their fate hath rushed;
Each cheering echo of the plain is hushed;
And every joyous, every tender sound,
In the loud roaring of the night-storm drowned.

How cheerily the rocks, from side to side,
Oft to the tabor's festive sounds replied!
There, when the bells upon a holiday
Rang out, and all the villagers were gay,
In summer-time, the happy groups were seen;
Youth linked with beauty bounded on the green,
And age sat smiling, as the joyous train
Round the tall May-pole, tapering from the plain,
Their locks entwined with ribands streaming red,
And crowned with flowers, the rural pastimes led.
Oh! on the bleeding turf the sad flowers throw,
And weep for them that sleep in dust below;
There sleep together, in their deathbed cold,
The beautiful, the brave, the young, the old!
No voice is heard that charmed their earthly road:
Around their desolate and last abode
The blast that swept them to the earth yet raves,
And strews with havoc their insulted graves.
As on the lucid lake's unruffled breast
Soft silvery lights and blending shadows rest,
Above, around the heavens' blue calm is spread,
And sleeps the sunshine on the mountain's head;
Then purple rocks and woods smile to the eye,
Like fairy landscapes of the evening sky;
And all is sad, save where some forest bird,
With small and solitary trill, is heard.
Sudden the scene is changed, the hurricane
Is up among the mountains, wind and rain
Drive, and strange darkness closes on the vale;
And high rocks to the lightning glimmer pale;

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And nought is heard but the deep thunder's roar,
Or vultures screaming round the desert shore.
So mourns the prospect, changed and overcast,
And shrieks the spirit in the passing blast!

But ah! how feller burst the ruthless storm
That speeds the moral prospect to deform!
To-morrow, and the man of blood may see
Again fresh verdure deck the dripping tree;
Again pure splendour light yon bursting views,
And the clear lake reflect the fairest hues;
Whilst the gay lark seems, with a livelier voice,
In scorn of his stern spirit, to rejoice.
But, hapless land, what dayspring shall restore
The lovelier morals that now smile no more!
Affection tender as the murmuring dove,
That in the noiseless wood her home-nest wove;
And piety, that the blue mountains trod,
With kindling eyes upraised to nature's God;
Virtues that made thy streams, and woods, and hills,
Thy lakes all sunshine, and thy shaded rills
Like pictures of no earthly paradise,
Beaming remote from sorrow and from vice.

Far from the earthly scenes that wasteful lie,
Virtue and peace, and arts and freedom fly;
Arts which the wild surrounding views inspired,
And freedom, such as genuine patriots fired.
When the great sun sinks in the crimson west,
And all the pines in golden pomp are dressed,
Whose daring hand shall snatch the vivid light,
That purples o'er the promontory's height;
And with a Loutherbourg's rich pencil throw
On the warm tablet all the lucid glow?
When the slow convent's bell sound from afar,
And the dim lake reflects the evening star;

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When shall again the rapt enthusiast rove
And deck the visionary bower of love?

Hushed be the Doric strain, that, in the shade
Of his own pines, the pensive Gesner played;
Which oft the homeward-plodding woodman, near,
Paused with his gray beard on his staff to hear;
Whilst his lean dog, whose opening lips disclose,
Just peeping forth, his white teeth's even rows,
Lifted his long ears with sagacious heed,
And fixed his full eye on his trilling reed!
High on the broad Alps' solitary van,
Where not a sound is heard of busy man,
Hark! with loud orgies, o'er the bloody dew,
Lewd Comus leads his nightly madding crew!
Strong shouts and clangours through the high wood run,
And distant arms flash to the sinking sun;
Dark forests their lone empire, the tall rocks
Their shelter, and their wealth their wandering flocks.
To the proud Macedon, whose conquering car
Rolled terrible through the ranks of armed war;
Whose banners chilled the plain with fearful shade;
Whose sovereignty a thousand trumpets brayed,
The Scythian chiefs spoke nobly: What have we,
King of the world, to do with thine or thee?
Far o'er the snowy solitudes we roam,
Or by wild rivers fix our casual home.
O'er the green champagne let thy cities shine;
We ne'er invaded fields or seats of thine;
Nor will we bow, proud lord, at thy decree;
Hence, hence, and leave us to our forests free!
But the stern soldier, with war's banners spread,
Through thy still vales his glittering squadrons led;

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And wild despair, and unrelenting hate,
Stalk o'er thine inmost valleys desolate;
And she, that like the nimble mountain roe,
With step scarce heard, went bounding o'er the snow;
She whose green buskins swept the frosts of morn,
Who walked the high wood with her bugle horn;
She who once called these hills her own, and found
Her loveliest sojourn 'mid the hallowed ground,
Blessing the spot where, shaded with high wood,
And decked with simple flowers, her altar stood;
Freedom insulted sees, as pale she flies,
A monster phantom in her name arise!
On weltering carcases it seems to stand,
Waving a dim-seen dagger in its hand;
Its look is unrelenting as the grave,
Around its brow the muttering whirlwinds rave;
Its spreading shadow chills the scene beneath,
Ah! fly—it onward moves, and murmurs, Death!
Earth fades beneath its footstep, and around
Long sighs and distant dying shrieks resound!

Could arms alone o'er thy brave sons prevail,
Helvetia? No, it was the fraudful tale
Of this false phantom which the heart misled;
That spoke of peace, peace to the poor man's shed,
Then left him, houseless, to the tempest's gloom
That swept his hopes and comforts to the tomb!
High towered the grisly spectre, half concealed,
And gathering clouds its dismal forests veiled;
The clouds disperse, and lo! 'mid murderous bands,
Dark in its might the hideous phantom stands!
Now see the triumph of its reign complete!
Behold it throned in its own sovereign seat!

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The orgies peal, the banners wave on high,
And dark rocks ring to shouts of liberty!

Now, soldier, lift thy loud acclaiming voice!
Children of high-souled sentiment, rejoice!
Round the scathed tree, upon the desert plain,
Dance o'er the victims of the village slain!

Thou who dost smiling sit, as fancy flings
Her hues unreal o'er created things,
And as the scenes in gay distemper shine,
Dost wondering cry, How sweet a world is mine!
Ah! see the shades, receding, that disclose
The direst spectacle of living woes!
And ye who, all enlightened, all sublime,
Pant in indignant thraldom till the time
When man, bursting his fetters, proud and free,
The wildest savage of the wilds shall be;
Artful instructors of our feeble kind,
Illumined leaders of the lost and blind,
Behold the destined glories of your reign!
Behold yon flaming sheds, yon outcast train!
Hark! hollow moaning on the fitful blast,
Methought, Rousseau, thy troubled spirit passed;
His ravaged country his dim eyes survey:
Are these the fruits, he said, or seemed to say,
Of those high energies of raptured thought,
That proud philosophy my precepts taught?
Then shrouding his sad visage from the sight,
Flew o'er the cloud-dressed Alps to solitude and night.

Thou too, whilst pondering History's vast plan,
Didst sit by the clear waters of Lausanne,
(What time Imperial Rome rose to thy view,
And thy bold hand her mighty image drew),

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Thou too, methinks, as the sad wrecks extend,
Dost seem in sorrow o'er the scene to bend.
With steady eye and penetrating mind,
Thou hast surveyed the toil of human kind;
Hast marked Ambition's march and fiery car,
And thousands shouting in the fields of war.
But direr woes might ne'er a sigh demand,
Than those of hapless, injured Switzerland!
Oh, may they teach, whatever feelings start,
One awful truth, that here we know in part:
Whatever darkness round his ark may rest,
There is a God, who knows what is is best.
Submissive, still adoring may we stand
Beneath the terrors of his chastening hand!
And though the clouds of carnage dim the sun,
Bend to the earth and say, Thy will be done!