[Page 154]

FAIRY SKETCH.

SCENE — NETLEY ABBEY.

1 There was a morrice on the moonlight plain,
2 And music echoed in the woody glade,
3 For fay-like forms, as of Titania's train,
4 Upon a summer eve, beneath the shade
5 Of Netley's ivied ruins, to the sound
6 Of sprightly minstrelsy did beat the ground: —
7 Come, take hands! and lightly move,
8 While our boat, in yonder cove,
9 Rests upon the darkening sea;
10 Come, take hands, and follow me!
11 Netley! thy dim and desolated fane
12 Hath heard, perhaps, the spirits of the night
13 Shrieking, at times, amid the wind and rain;
14 Or haply, when the full-orbed moon shone bright,
15 Thy glimmering aisles have echoed to the song
16 Of fairy Mab, who led her shadowy masque along.
17 Now, as to the sprightly sound
18 Of moonlight minstrelsy we beat the ground;[Page 155]
19 From the pale nooks, in accent clear,
20 Now, methinks, her voice I hear,
21 Sounding o'er the darksome sea;
22 Come, take hands, and follow me!
23 Here, beneath the solemn wood,
24 When faintly-blue is all the sky,
25 And the moon is still on high,
26 To the murmurs of the flood,
27 To the glimpses of the night,
28 We perform our airy rite; —
29 Care and pain to us unknown,
30 To the darkening seas are flown.
31 Hear no more life's fretful noise,
32 Heed not here pale Envy's sting,
33 Far from life's distempered joys;
34 To the waters murmuring,
35 To the shadows of the sky,
36 To the moon that rides on high,
37 To the glimpses of the night,
38 We perform our airy rite,
39 While care and pain, to us unknown,
40 To the darkening seas are flown.

Text

  • TEI/XML (XML - 133K / ZIP - 10K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 1.4K / ZIP - 901 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

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

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 387K)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): FAIRY SKETCH. SCENE — NETLEY ABBEY.
Author: William Lisle Bowles
Themes:
Genres:

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. 154-155.  (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