ON WILLIAM SOMMERS OF BREMHILL. William Lisle Bowles Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
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. 169-170.

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