| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | IV. To Bowles | | By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) |
| | | 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: | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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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