What Bowles saw in Nature was largely determined by his state of mind. His own sadness led him to a quick perception of the pensive or melancholy suggestions in any scene. He loved sequestered streams, romantic vales, the hush of evening. The sounds he heard were soft and plaintive. The river Wainsbeck makes “a plaintive song among its “mossy-scattered rocks.”[525] He listens to the wind and seems to hear a plaint of sorrow.[526] Sea sounds are Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre.[527] There is strange music in the stirring wind When lowers the autumnal eve.[528] Of the bells at Ostend he says: 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 from an ancient tower, in life’s fair prime, The mournful magic of their mingling chime First waked my wondering childhood into tears.[529] Again, his own striving after self-control leads him to look with pleasure on such natural objects as have withstood the shock of tempests. Rugged Malvern Hill, on which the “parting sun sits smiling,” teaches him a lesson of victory over grief, and he exclaims, Ev’n as thou Dost lift in the pale beam thy forehead high, Proud mountain! whilst the scattered vapours fly Unheeded round thy breast--so, with calm brow The shades of sorrow I may meet, and wear The smile unchanged of peace, though pressed by care![530] Some of the brief descriptions in these sonnets are not without a certain beauty in themselves, as in this passage from “Dover Cliffs”: On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood Uprear their shadowing heads, and at their feet Hear not the surge that has for ages beat, How many a lonely wanderer has stood! And, whilst the lifted murmur met his ear, And o’er the distant billows the still eve Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave Tomorrow. But here, as elsewhere in the poems, the chief thought is human grief; and the most important characteristic of the poems, taken as a whole, is the intimate union between the spirit of a man and the spirit of Nature. It was always Bowles’ theory, says Clark,[531] that Nature is the true subject of poetry; but he does not, in his later work, strike so true and simple a note as in these early sonnets. Such general statements as are to be drawn from this study of specific poets can be more advantageously made after the chapters on “Fiction,” “Travels,” “Gardening,” and “Painting,” for these chapters offer facts that modify or confirm the impressions gained from the poetry. CHAPTER III FICTION