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MILTON.

ON THE BUSTS OF MILTON, IN YOUTH AND AGE, AT STOURHEAD.

IN YOUTH.
1 Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
2 Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
3 That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
4 To mar its openness, we seem to trace
5 The front of the first lord of human race,
6 'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair,
7 Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air
8 That characters thy youth. Shall time efface
9 These lineaments as crowding cares assail!
10 It is the lot of fall'n humanity.
11 What boots it! armed in adamantine mail,
12 The unconquerable mind, and genius high,
13 Right onward hold their way through weal and woe,
14 Or whether life's brief lot be high or low!
IN AGE.
15 And art thou he, now "fall'n on evil days,"
16 And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek,
17 These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak!
18 A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,
19 A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze
20 Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek,
21 As in the sight of God intent to seek,
22 'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways[Page 31]
23 Of hard adversity, the approving look
24 Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride
25 Of wisdom, patient and content to brook
26 All ills to that sole Master's task applied,
27 Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind,
28 Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind!

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Title (in Source Edition): MILTON. ON THE BUSTS OF MILTON, IN YOUTH AND AGE, AT STOURHEAD.
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Genres: sonnet

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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. 30-31.  (Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

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Other works by William Lisle Bowles