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    Banwell Hill: A Lay of The Seven Seas: "To view the dark memorials of a world"
    Banwell Hill: A Lay of The Seven Seas: "To view the dark memorials of a world"
    Banwell Hill: A Lay of The Seven Seas: "To view the dark memorials of a world"
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    Banwell Hill: A Lay of The Seven Seas: "To view the dark memorials of a world"

    By William Lisle Bowles

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    About this ebook

    William Lisle Bowles was born on 24th September 1762 at King’s Sutton in Northamptonshire.

    His great-grandfather, grandfather and his father, William Thomas Bowles, had all been parish priests and inevitably Bowles would join their line.

    In 1789 Bowles published, a small quarto volume, Fourteen Sonnets, which was received with extraordinary praise, not only by the general public, but by such revered poets as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Wordsworth.

    After receiving his degree at Oxford, Bowles now began his career in service to the Church of England.

    His years of service perhaps diminished both his stature as a poet and certainly the way he was viewed. For much of his career Bowles was seen as rather soft when set against his contemporaries but in the end his ability as a poet was enshrined, after a long and ferocious attack against him, by the principles he so eloquently wrote about and adhered too.

    In personality and nature Bowles was said to be an amiable, absent-minded, but rather eccentric man. His poems speak warmly of a refinement of feeling, tenderness, and pensive thought, but are lacking in power and passion. But that should not diminish their value or appreciation to us.

    Bowles maintained that images drawn from nature are poetically finer than those drawn from art; and that in the highest kinds of poetry the themes or passions handled should be of the general or elemental kind, and not the transient manners of any society.

    As well as his poetry Bowles was also responsible for writing a Life of Bishop Ken (in two volumes, 1830–1831), Coombe Ellen and St. Michael's Mount (1798), The Battle of the Nile (1799), and The Sorrows of Switzerland (1801).

    William Lisle Bowles died on April 7th, 1850 at the age of 87.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortable Poetry
    Release dateDec 25, 2017
    ISBN9781787373204
    Banwell Hill: A Lay of The Seven Seas: "To view the dark memorials of a world"

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      Book preview

      Banwell Hill - William Lisle Bowles

      Banwell Hill: A Lay of the Seven Seas by William Lisle Bowles

      William Lisle Bowles was born on 24th September 1762 at King’s Sutton in Northamptonshire.

      His great-grandfather, grandfather and his father, William Thomas Bowles, had all been parish priests and inevitably Bowles would join their line.

      In 1789 Bowles published, a small quarto volume, Fourteen Sonnets, which was received with extraordinary praise, not only by the general public, but by such revered poets as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Wordsworth.

      After receiving his degree at Oxford, Bowles now began his career in service to the Church of England.

      His years of service perhaps diminished both his stature as a poet and certainly the way he was viewed. For much of his career Bowles was seen as rather soft when set against his contemporaries but in the end his ability as a poet was enshrined, after a long and ferocious attack against him, by the principles he so eloquently wrote about and adhered too.

      In personality and nature Bowles was said to be an amiable, absent-minded, but rather eccentric man. His poems speak warmly of a refinement of feeling, tenderness, and pensive thought, but are lacking in power and passion. But that should not diminish their value or appreciation to us.

      Bowles maintained that images drawn from nature are poetically finer than those drawn from art; and that in the highest kinds of poetry the themes or passions handled should be of the general or elemental kind, and not the transient manners of any society.

      As well as his poetry Bowles was also responsible for writing a Life of Bishop Ken (in two volumes, 1830–1831), Coombe Ellen and St. Michael's Mount (1798), The Battle of the Nile (1799), and The Sorrows of Switzerland (1801).

      William Lisle Bowles died on April 7th, 1850 at the age of 87.

      Index of Contents

      BANWELL HILL: A Lay of the Severn Sea:—

      Preface                             

      Part First                          

      Part Second                         

      Part Third                          

      Part Fourth                         

      Part Fifth                                                        

      William Lisle Bowles – A Short Biography

      PREFACE

      The estimation of a Poem of this nature must depend, first, on its arrangement, plan, and disposition; secondly, on the judgment, propriety, and feeling with which—in just and proper succession and relief—picture, pathos, moral and religious reflections, historical notices, or affecting incidents, are interwoven. Thereader will, in the next place, attend to the versification, or music, in which the thoughts are conveyed. Shakspeare and Milton are the great masters of the verse I have adopted. But who can be heard after them? The reader, however, will at least find no specimens of sonorous harmony ending with such significant words as of, and, if, but, etc of which we have had lately some splendid examples. I would therefore only request of him to observe, that when such passages occur in this poem as vanishing, hush! etc. it was from design, and not from want of ear.

      An intermixture of images and characters from common life might be thought, at first sight, out of keeping with the higher tone of general colouring; but the interspersion of the comic, provided the due mock-heroic stateliness be kept up in the language, has often the effect of light and shade, as will be apparent on looking at Cowper's exquisite Task, although he has often offended against taste. The only difficulty is happily to steer from grave to gay.

      So far respecting the plan, the execution, the versification, and style. As to the sentiments conveyed in this poem, and in the notes, I must explicitly declare, that when I am convinced, as a clergyman and a magistrate, that there has been an increase of crime, owing, among other causes, to the system pursued by some nominal Christians, who will not preach these three (faith, hope, and charity) according to the order of St Paul, but keep two of these graces, and the greatest of all, out of sight, upon any human plea or pretension; when they do not preach, Add to your faith virtue; when they will not preach, Christ died for the sins of the world, and not for ours only; when, from any pleas of their own, or persuaded by any sophistry or faction, they become, most emphatically, dumb dogs to the sublime and affecting moral parts of that gospel which they have engaged before God to deliver; and above all, when crimes, as I am verily persuaded have been, are, and must be, the consequence of such public preaching,—leaving others to stand or fall to their own God; I shall be guided by my own understanding, and the plain Word of God, as I find it earnestly, simply, beautifully, and divinely set before me by Christ and his Apostles; and so feeling, I shall as fearlessly deliver my own opinions, being assured, whether popular or unpopular, whether they offend this man or that, this sect or that sect, they will not easily be shaken.

      I might ask, why did St Paul add, so emphatically, these three, when he enumerated the Christian graces? Doubtless, because he thought the distinction very important. Why did St Peter say, Add to your faith virtue? Because he thought it equally important and essential. Why did St John say, Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and not for ours only? Because he thought it equally important and necessary.

      Never omitting the atonement, justification by faith, the fruits of the Spirit, and never separating faith from its hallowed fellowship, we shall find all other parts of the gospel unite in harmonious subordination; but if we shade the moral parts down, leave them out, contradict them, by insidious sophistry, the Scripture, so far from being rightly divided, will be discordant and clashing. The man, be he whom he may, who preaches faith without charity; who preaches faith without virtue, is as pernicious and false an expounder of the divine message, as he who preaches good works, without their legitimate and only foundation—Christian faith.

      One would suppose, from the language of some preachers, the civil,

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