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

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Whilst, like the camel's shadow on the sands

      Beneath them years and ages passed. He said,

      My name shall never die! and like the God

      Of silence,10 with his finger on his lip,

      Oblivion mocked, then pointed to a tomb,

      'Mid vast and winding vaults, without a name.

      Where art thou, Thebes? The chambers of the dead

      Echo, Behold! and twice ten thousand men,

      Even in their march of rapine and of blood,

      Involuntary halted,11 at the sight

      Of thy majestic wreck, for many, a league —

      Sphynxes, colossal fanes, and obelisks —

      Pale in the morning sun! Ambition sighed

      A moment, and passed on. In this rude isle,

      The Druid altars frowned; and still they stand,

      As silent as the barrows at their feet,

      Yet tell the same stern tale. Soldier of Rome,

      Art thou come hither to this land remote

      Hid in the ocean-waste? Thy chariot wheels

      Rung on that road below!12– Cohorts, and turms,

      With their centurions, in long file appear,

      Their golden eagles glittering to the sun,

      O'er the last line of spears; and standard-flags

      Wave, and the trumpets sounding to advance,

      And shields, and helms, and crests, and chariots, mark

      The glorious march of Cæsar's soldiery,

      Firing the gray horizon! They are passed!

      And, like a gleam of glory, perishing,

      Leave but a name behind! So passes man,

      An armed spectre o'er a field of blood,

      And vanishes; and other armed shades

      Pass by, red battle hurtling as they pass.

      The Saxon kings have strewed their palaces

      From Thames to Tyne. But, lo! the sceptre shakes;

      The Dane, remorseless as the hurricane

      That sweeps his native cliffs, harries the land!

      What terror strode before his track of blood!

      What hamlets mourned his desultory march,

      When on the circling hills, along the sea,

      The beacon-flame shone nightly! He has passed!

      Now frowns the Norman victor on his throne,

      And every cottage shrouds its lonely fire,

      As the sad curfew sounds. Yet Piety,

      With new-inspiring energies, awoke,

      And ampler polity: in woody vales,

      In unfrequented wilds, and forest-glens,

      The towers of the sequestered abbey shone,

      As when the pinnacles of Glaston-Fane

      First met the morning light. The parish church,

      Then too, exulting o'er the ruder cross,

      Upsprung, till soon the distant village peal

      Flings out its music, where the tapering spire

      Adds a new picture to the sheltered vale.

      Uphill, thy rock, where sits the lonely church,

      Above the sands, seems like the chronicler

      Of other times, there left to tell the tale!

      But issuing from the cave, look round, behold

      How proudly the majestic Severn rides

      On to the sea; how gloriously in light

      It rides! Along this solitary ridge,

      Where smiles, but rare, the blue campanula,

      Among the thistles and gray stones that peep

      Through the thin herbage, to the highest point

      Of elevation, o'er the vale below,

      Slow let us climb. First look upon that flower,

      The lowly heath-bell, smiling at our feet.

      How beautiful it smiles alone! The Power

      That bade the great sea roar, that spread the heavens,

      That called the sun from darkness, decked that flower,

      And bade it grace this bleak and barren hill.

      Imagination, in her playful mood,

      Might liken it to a poor village maid,

      Lowly, but smiling in her lowliness,

      And dressed so neatly as if every day

      Were Sunday. And some melancholy bard

      Might, idly musing, thus discourse to it: —

      Daughter of Summer, who dost linger here,

      Decking the thistly turf, and arid hill,

      Unseen, let the majestic dahlia

      Glitter, an empress, in her blazonry

      Of beauty; let the stately lily shine,

      As snow-white as the breast of the proud swan

      Sailing upon the blue lake silently,

      That lifts her tall neck higher as she views

      Her shadow in the stream! Such ladies bright

      May reign unrivalled in their proud parterres!

      Thou wouldst not live with them; but if a voice,

      Fancy, in shaping mood, might give to thee,

      To the forsaken primrose thou wouldst say —

      Come, live with me, and we two will rejoice:

      Nor want I company; for when the sea

      Shines in the silent moonlight, elves and fays,

      Gentle and delicate as Ariel,

      That do their spiritings on these wild holts,

      Circle me in their dance, and sing such songs

      As human ear ne'er heard! But cease the strain,

      Lest wisdom and severer truth should chide.

      Behind that windmill, sailing round and round,

      Like days on days revolving, Bleadon lies,

      Where first I pondered on the grammar-lore,

      Sad as the spelling-book, beneath the roof

      Of its secluded parsonage; Brean Down

      Emerges o'er the edge of Hutton Hill,

      Just seen in paler light! And Weston there,

      Where I remember a few cottages

      Sprinkling the sand, uplifts its tower, and shines,

      As if in conscious beauty, o'er the scene.

      And I have seen a far more welcome sight,

      The living line of population stream —

      Children, and village maids, and gray old men —

      Stream o'er the sands to church: such change has been

      In the brief compass of one hastening life!

      And yet that hill, the light, is to my eyes

      Familiar as those sister isles that sit

      In the mid channel! Look, how calm they sit,

      As СКАЧАТЬ