Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)

Sonnets: November, 1793

THERE is strange music in the stirring wind,

When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone

To the dark wood’s cold covert thou art gone,

Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined

Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere.

If in such shades, beneath their murmuring,

Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring,

With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year;

Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn

Or evening thou hast shared, far off shall stray.

O Spring, return! return, auspicious May!

But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn,

If she return not with thy cheering ray,

Who from these shades is gone, gone far away.