[Page 169]

ON WILLIAM SOMMERS OF BREMHILL.

1 When will the grave shelter thy few gray hairs,
2 O aged man! Thy sand is almost run,
3 And many a year, in vain, to meet the sun,
4 Thine eyes have rolled in darkness; want and cares
5 Have been thy visitants from morn to morn.
6 While trembling on existence thou dost live,
7 Accept what human charity can give;
8 But standing thus, time-palsied, and forlorn,
9 Like a scathed oak, of all its boughs bereft,
10 God and the grave are thy best refuge left.
11 When the bells rung, and summer's smiling ray
12 Welcomed again the merry Whitsuntide,[Page 170]
13 And all my humble villagers were gay;
14 I saw thee sitting on the highway side,
15 To feel once more the warm sun's blessed beam:
16 Didst thou then think upon thy own gay prime,
17 On such a holiday, and the glad time
18 When thou wert young and happy, like a dream
19 Now perished! No; the murmured prayer alone
20 Rose from the trembling lips towards the Throne
21 Of Mercy; that ere spring returned again,
22 And the long winter blew its dreary blast,
23 To sweep the verdure from the fading plain,
24 Thy burden would be dropped, thy sorrows past!
25 O blind and aged man, bowed down with cares,
26 When will the grave shelter thy few gray hairs!

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Title (in Source Edition): ON WILLIAM SOMMERS OF BREMHILL.
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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. 169-170.  (Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

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Other works by William Lisle Bowles