MILTON. ON THE BUSTS OF MILTON, IN YOUTH AND AGE, AT STOURHEAD. William Lisle Bowles Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 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.

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