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SONNETS ON EMINENT CHARACTERS: 7. TO W.L. BOWLES (REVISED VERSION) by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Poet Analysis

First Line: MY HEART HAS THANKED THEE, BOWLES! FOR THOSE SOFT STRAINS
Last Line: MOVED ON THE DARKNESS OF THE UNFORMED DEEP.
Subject(s): BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE (1762-1850);

My heart has thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains
Whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring
Of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring!
For hence not callous to the mourner's pains
Through Youth's gay prime and thornless paths I went:
And when the mightier throes of mind began,
And drove me forth, a thought-bewildered man,
Their mild and manliest melancholy lent
A mingled charm, such as the pang consigned
To slumber, though the big tear it renewed;
Bidding a strange mysterious Pleasure brood
Over the wavy and tumultuous mind,
As the great Spirit erst with plastic sweep
Moved on the darkness of the unformed deep.



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