[Page 17]

ABSENCE.

1 There is strange music in the stirring wind,
2 When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone
3 To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone,
4 Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined[Page 18]
5 Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere.
6 If in such shades, beneath their murmuring,
7 Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring,
8 With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year;
9 Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn
10 Or evening thou hast shared, afar shall stray.
11 O Spring, return! return, auspicious May!
12 But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn,
13 If she return not with thy cheering ray,
14 Who from these shades is gone, far, far away.

Text

  • TEI/XML (XML - 60K / ZIP - 5.9K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 643 / ZIP - 563 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 470K)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): ABSENCE.
Themes:
Genres: sonnet

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Bowles, William Lisle, 1762-1850. The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. I. With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 9 North Bank Street..., 1855, pp. 17-18.  (Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

Editorial principles

Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by William Lisle Bowles