The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Volume I Part 1

The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles.

Vol. 1.

by William Lisle Bowles.

PREFACE.

A Ninth Edition of the following Poems having been called for by the public, the author is induced to say a few words, particularly concerning those which, under the name of Sonnets, describe his personal feelings.

They can be considered in no other light than as exhibiting occasional reflections which naturally arose in his mind, chiefly during various excursions, undertaken to relieve, at the time, depression of spirits.

They were, therefore, in general, suggested by the scenes before them; and wherever such scenes appeared to harmonise with his disposition at the moment, the sentiments were involuntarily prompted.

Numberless poetical trifles of the same kind have occurred to him, when perhaps, in his solitary rambles, he has been "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy;" but they have been forgotten as he left the places which gave rise to them; and the greater part of those originally committed to the press were written down, for the first time, from memory.

This is nothing to the public; but it may serve in some measure to obviate the common remark on melancholy poetry, that it has been very often gravely composed, when possibly the heart of the writer had very little share in the distress he chose to describe.

But there is a great difference between _natural_ and _fabricated_ feelings, even in poetry. To which of these two characters the poems before the reader belong, the author leaves those who have felt sensations of sorrow to judge.

They who know him, know the occasions of them to have been real; to the public he might only mention the sudden death of a deserving young woman, with whom,

... _Sperabat longos heu! ducere soles, Et fido acclinis consenuisse sinu._[1]

DONHEAD, _April 1805._

[1] The early editions of these Sonnets, 1791, were dedicated to the Reverend Newton Ogle, D.D., Dean of Winchester.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1837.

To account for the variations which may be remarked in this last edition of my Sonnets, from that which was first published fifty years ago, it may be proper to state, that to the best of my recollection, they now appear nearly as they were originally composed in my solitary hours; when, in youth a wanderer among distant scenes, I sought forgetfulness of the first disappointment in early affections.

Delicacy even now, though the grave has long closed over the beloved object, would forbid entering on a detail of the peculiar circ.u.mstances in early life, and the anguish which occasioned these poetical meditations. In fact, I never thought of writing them down at the time, and many had escaped my recollection;[2] but three years after my return to England, on my way to the banks of Cherwell, where

"I bade the pipe farewell, and that sad lay Whose music, on my melancholy way, I wooed,"

pa.s.sing through Bath, I wrote down all I could recollect of these effusions, most elaborately _mending_ the versification from the natural flow of music in which they occurred to me, and having thus _corrected_ and written them out, took them myself to the late Mr Cruttwell, with the name of "Fourteen Sonnets, written chiefly on Picturesque Spots during a Journey."

I had three times knocked at this amiable printer's door, whose kind smile I still recollect; and at last, with much hesitation, ventured to unfold my message; it was to inquire whether he would give any thing for "Fourteen Sonnets," to be published with or without the name.[3] He at once declined the purchase, and informed me he doubted very much whether the publication would repay the expense of printing, which would come to about five pounds. It was at last determined one hundred copies, in quarto, should be published as a kind of "forlorn hope;" and these "Fourteen Sonnets" I left to their fate and thought no more of getting rich by poetry! In fact, I owed the most I ever owed at Oxford, at this time, namely, seventy pounds;[4] and knowing my father's large family and trying circ.u.mstances, and those of my poor mother, I shrunk from asking more money when I left home, and went back with a heavy heart to Oxford, under the conscious weight, that my poetic scheme failing, I had no means of paying Parsons, the mercer's, bill! This was the origin of the publication.

As this plain account is so connected with whatever may be my name in criticism and poetry, it is hoped it will be pardoned.

All thoughts of succeeding as a poet were now abandoned; but, half a year afterwards, I received a letter from the printer informing me that the hundred copies were all sold, adding, that if I had published FIVE HUNDRED copies, he had no doubt they would have been sold also.

This, in my then situation, my father now dead, and my mother a widow with seven children, and with a materially reduced income (from the loss of the rectories of Uphill and Brean in Somerset), was gratifying indeed; all my golden dreams of poetical success were renewed;--the number of the sonnets first published was increased, and five hundred copies, by the congratulating printer, with whose family I have lived in kindest amity from that hour, were recommended to issue from the press of the editor of the _Bath Chronicle_.

But this was not all, the five hundred copies were sold to great advantage, for it was against my will that _five hundred_ copies should be printed, till the printer told me he would take the risk on himself, on the usual terms, at that time, of bookseller and author.

Soon afterwards, it was agreed that _seven hundred and fifty_ copies should be printed, in a smaller and elegant size. I had received Coleridge's warm testimony; but soon after this third edition came out, my friend, Mr Cruttwell, the printer, wrote a letter saying that two young gentlemen, strangers, one a particularly handsome and pleasing youth, lately from Westminster School, and both literary and intelligent, spoke in high commendation of my volume, and if I recollect right, expressed a desire to have some poems printed in the same type and form. Who these young men were I knew not at the time, but the communication of the circ.u.mstance was to me most gratifying; and how much more gratifying, when, from one of them, after he himself had achieved the fame of one of the most virtuous and eloquent of the writers in his generation, I received a first visit at my parsonage in Wilts.h.i.+re upwards of forty years afterwards! It was ROBERT SOUTHEY. We parted in my garden last year, when stealing time and sorrow had marked his still manly, but most interesting countenance.[5]--Therefore,

TO

ROBERT SOUTHEY,

WHO HAS EXHIBITED IN HIS PROSE WORKS, AS IN HIS LIFE,

THE PURITY AND VIRTUES OF ADDISON AND LOCKE,

AND IN HIS POETRY THE IMAGINATION

AND SOUL OF SPENSER,

THESE POEMS,

WITH EVERY AFFECTIONATE PRAYER, ARE INSCRIBED

BY

HIS SINCERE FRIEND,

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

[2] I confined myself to fourteen lines, because fourteen lines seemed best adapted to unity of sentiment. I thought nothing about the strict Italian model; the verses naturally flowed in unpremeditated harmony, as my ear directed, but the slightest inspection will prove they were far from being mere elegiac couplets. The subjects were chiefly from river scenery, and the reader will recollect what Sir Humphrey Davy has said on this subject so beautifully; it will be recollected, also, that they were published ten years before those of Mr Wordsworth on the river Duddon, Yarrow, _et cet._ There have been many claimants, among modern poets, for the laurel of the sonnet, but, in picturesque description, sentiment, and harmony, I know none superior to those of my friend the Rev. Charles Hoyle, on scenery in Scotland, the mountains of Ben Nevis, Loch Lomond, _et cet._

[3] To account for the present variations, some remained as originally with their natural pauses, others for the press I thought it best to correct into verse less broken, and now, after fifty years, they are recorrected, and restored, I believe, more nearly to the original shape in which they were first meditated.

[4] I hoped by my Sonnets to pay this vast debt.

[5] His companion, Mr Lovel, died in youth.

SONNETS, ETC.

AT TYNEMOUTH PRIORY,[6]

AFTER A TEMPESTUOUS VOYAGE.

As slow I climb the cliff's ascending side, Much musing on the track of terror past, When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast, Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide That laves the pebbled sh.o.r.e: and now the beam Of evening smiles on the gray battlement, And yon forsaken tower that time has rent:-- The lifted oar far off with transient gleam Is touched, and hushed is all the billowy deep!

Soothed by the scene, thus on tired Nature's breast A stillness slowly steals, and kindred rest; While sea-sounds lull her, as she sinks to sleep, Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre, Waked by the breeze, and, as they mourn, expire!

[6] The remains of this monastery are situated on a lofty point, on the north side of the entrance into the river Tyne, about a mile and a half below North s.h.i.+elds. The rock on which the monastery stood rendered it visible at sea a long way off, in every direction, whence it presented itself as if exhorting the seamen in danger to make their vows, and promise ma.s.ses and presents to the Virgin Mary and St Oswin for their deliverance.