SIR SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES

Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges

(1762-1837)

ON ECHO AND SILENCE

IN eddying course when leaves began to fly, And Autumn in her lap the store to strew, As 'mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to

woo,

Through glens untrod and woods that frowned on high,

Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy!

And lo, she's gone !-in robe of dark green hue,

'Twas Echo from her sister Silence flew : For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky!

In shade affrighted Silence melts away.

Not so her sister!-hark, for onward still With far-heard step she takes her listening

way,

Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to hill!

Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill.

William Lisle Bowles

(1762-1850)

OSTEND

ON HEARING THE BELLS AT SEA

How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal! As when at opening dawn the fragrant breeze

Touches the trembling sense of pale disease,
So piercing to my heart their force I feel.
And hark with lessening cadence now
they fall,

And now along the white and level tide
They fling their melancholy music wide;

Bidding me many a tender thought recall
Of summer days, and those delightful years
When by my native streams, in life's fair
prime,

The mournful magic of their mingling chime

First waked my wondering childhood into

tears!

But seeming now, when all those days are o'er,

The sounds of joy once heard and heard

no more.

O TIME! who know'st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence,

Lulling to sad repose the weary sense, The faint pang stealest unperceived away;

On thee I rest my only hope at last,

And think, when thou hast dried the bitter

tear

That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile;-

As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower

Forgetful, though its wings are wet the

while :

Yet, ah! how much must that poor heart endure,

Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a

cure!

W. L. Bowles.

William Wordsworth

(1770-1850)

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room; And hermits are contented with their cells; And students with their pensive citadels : Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest peak of Furness Fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth the prison unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,

In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground: Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, as I have

found.

CALM is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as

Is cropping audibly his later meal :

pass,

Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.

Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt, and home-created, seems to heal That grief for which the senses still supply Fresh food; for only then, when memory

Is hushed, am I at rest. My friends! restrain Those busy cares that would allay my pain :

Oh! leave me to myself; nor let me feel The officious touch that makes me droop again.