Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,-64

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes

confined;

Forbade to wade thro' slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind. 68

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 72

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool, sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
deck'd,

76

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 80

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

84

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind? 88

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

دو

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,-96

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

100

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 104

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one, forlorn, Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless

love.

108

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,

Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he: 112

The next with dirges due in sad array

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay

Graved on the stone beneath yon agèd
thorn: "

116

THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth;
A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, i
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. 120

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to Misʼry all he had, a tear,

He gain'd from Heav'n ('t was all he wish'd)
a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, ;

124

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God. 128 Thomas Gray,

751.

THANATOPSIS

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart-
Go forth under the open sky, and list

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To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice:-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 20
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall
claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy

mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone,-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,-with kings,
The powerful of the earth,-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green; and, poured
round all,

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,
Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls 'the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,-yet the dead are there!

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