[Page 215]

AVENUE IN SAVERNAKE FOREST.

1 How soothing sound the gentle airs that move
2 The innumerable leaves, high overhead,
3 When autumn first, from the long avenue,
4 That lifts its arching height of ancient shade,
5 Steals here and there a leaf!
5 Within the gloom,
6 In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear,
7 Studding the glens of fern; in solemn shade
8 Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all,
9 All make a sad sweet music, as they move,
10 Not undelightful to a stranger's heart.
11 They seem to say, in accents audible,
12 Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains
13 Of many a lithe and feathered chorister,
14 That through the depth of these incumbent woods
15 Made the long summer gladsome.
15 I have heard
16 To the deep-mingling sounds of organs clear,
17 (When slow the choral anthem rose beneath),
18 The glimmering minster, through its pillared aisles,
19 Echo; — but not more sweet the vaulted roof
20 Rang to those linked harmonies, than here
21 The high wood answers to the lightest breath
22 Of nature.
22 Oh, may such sweet music steal,
23 Soothing the cares of venerable age,
139 The Earl of Aylesbury.
24 From public toil retired: may it awake,
25 As, still and slow, the sun of life declines,[Page 216]
26 Remembrances, not mournful, but most sweet;
27 May it, as oft beneath the sylvan shade
28 Their honoured owner strays, come like the sound
29 Of distant seraph harps, yet speaking clear!
30 How poor is every sound of earthly things,
31 When heaven's own music waits the just and pure!

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Title (in Source Edition): AVENUE IN SAVERNAKE FOREST.
Author: William Lisle Bowles
Themes:
Genres: blank verse

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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. 215-216.  (Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

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