ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.1 The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 1 The reasons of that universal approbation with which this Elegy has been received, may be warned from the comprehensive encomium of Dr. Johnson: "It abounds with images which find a mirror in every soul; and with sentiments, to which every bosom returns an echo." "Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand aigher; it is the corner-stone of his glory."-Lord Byron. "Of smaller poems, the Elegy of Gray may be considered as the most exquisite and finished example in the world, of the effect resulting from the intermixture of evening scenery and pathetic eflection."-Drake's Literary Hours, 11. 66. ? Dr. Warton would spoil the tranquil simplicity of this line, by introducing a pause with a note of admiration after the word "tolls." But such affectation of solemnity and suddenness in his mi sing 18 nowhere to be found in our author. 3 "I know not what there is of spell in the following simple line. 'The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,' but no frequency of repetition can exhaust its touching charm. This fine poem overcame even the Spiteful enmity of Johnson, and forced him to acknowledge its excellence."- Sir Egerton Brydges. The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene,' The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast Th' applause of listening senates to command, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone 1 A writer in the ninth volume of the Quarterly Review cites the following passage from Bishop Hall's Contemplations, as a singular instance of accidental resemblance: "There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor never shall be." So Milton in his Comus speaks of the "Sea-girt isles, That, like to rich and various gems, inlay The unadorned bosom of the deep." 2 "What son of Freedom is not in raptures with this tribute of praise to such an exalted character, in immortal verse? This honorable testimony and the noble detestation of arbitrary power, with which it is accompanied, might possibly be one cause of Dr. Johnson's animosity against our poet. Upon this topic the critic's feelings, we know, were irritability itself and 'tremblingly alive all o'er."-Wakefield. 3 These two verses are specimens of sublimity of the the purest kind, like the simple grandeur of Hebrew poetry; depending solely on the thought, unassisted by epithets and the artificial decorations of expression. The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide, With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet e er these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture' deck'd . Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, Some pious drops the closing eye requires Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, To meet the sun upon the upland lawr: That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, Or crazed with Care, or cross'd in hopeless Love. 1 "In Gray's Elegy, is there an image more striking than his 'shapeless sculpture ?"—Lord Byron. "In the first edition it stood, 'Awake and faithful to her wonted fires.' and I think rather better. He means to say, in plain prose, that we wish to be remembered by our friends after our death, in the same manner as when alive we wished to be remembered by them in our absence: this would be expressed clearer, if the metaphorical term 'fires' was rejected, and the line run thus: 'Awake and faithful to her first desires." I do not put this alteration down for the idle vanity of aiming to amend the passage, but purely to explain it."-Mason. "One morn! miss'd him on the custom'd hil Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he: "The next, with dirges due in sad array, Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne > THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown: He gain'd from Heaven (twas all he wish'd) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.2 ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE." Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,4 1 "Between this line and the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought (and in my Opinion very justly) that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines, however, are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation.”—Mason. "There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are showers of violets found; ? This epitaph has been commented on, and translated into different languages, by various men of eminence, most of them divines. Did it never occur to any of these, that there was an impropriety In making the "bosoin" of Almighty God an abode for human frailty to repose in? Unless, therefore, the author meant by the word "bosom" only remembrance, there is certainly a great inconsistency In the expression. 3 Gray has, in his ode on Eton College, whether we consider the sweetness of the versification or its delicious train of plaintive tenderness, rivalled every lyric effort of ancient or of modern date."-Drake's Literary Hours, ii. 84. 4 These spires and towers are addressed by the poet without any use or intention; for nothing is afterwards asserted of them, and they are introduced only to be dismissed in silence, and without further notice. The Towers of London, in the second epode of the "Bard," are not apostrophized with su little meaning. 6 King Henry the Sixth, founder of the College. So in the Bard, ii. 3:— "And spare the meek usurfer's holy head." Shakspeare, in Richard the Third, twice applies the same epithet; and in the Installation Ode our author's expression, murdered sains, is applicable enough (notwithstanding Henry was never actually canonized) to the monarch who, as has been well said, would have adorned a cloister, though he disgraced a crown. And ye, that from the stately brow Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among His silver-winding way.? Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!3 Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing; My weary soul they seem to soothe, Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen The captive linnet which enthral? To chase the rolling circle's speed, 1 "That is, the turf of whose sawn, the shade of whose grove, the flowers of whose mead. So in Shak speare:-'The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword;' that is, 'The courtier's eye, the woldier's sword, the scholar's tongue.' This singularity often occurs in Mr. Pope.”— Wakefield. ? Mr. Wakefield has a complaint against this compound epithet. The silver-shedding tears of Shak speare, Two Gent. of Ver. Act. ill. sc. 1, and the silver-quivering rills of Pope, might perhaps have reconciled him to it, if he had recollected them. Both these expressions, as well as one from Dart's "Westwinster Abbey," "Where Thames in silver-currents winds his way," are cited in this place by Mr. Mitford. 8 Mr. Wakefield here quotes from the "Odyssey," O. 397. And it may be remarked, that the ancients were by no means unacquainted with that species of pathos which is derived from the melancholy delight of early remembrance. The feeling which induces us to dress up the past in a fancied superiority of enjoyment, is natural and universal; nor can the indulgence of it be pernicious, 20 ong as it foes not interfere with the necessary energies of the present hour. "And bees their honey redolent of spring." Dryden's Pythag. System. As Gray refers this expression to Dryden, it is probable that he was not acquainted with any ear lier authority. Dr. Johnson is highly offended at it, as passing beyond the utmost limits of our lan guage, and of common apprehension. The critic, perhaps, never in his life partook of the feeling here described, or possibly he would not have objected to the expression. 6 The ill-natured criticism of Dr. Johnson on this line cannot be refuted better than it has been by Mr. Mitford. "His supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop, or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames had no better means of knowing than himself.”—Are we by this rule of criticism to judge the following passage in the twentieth chapter of Rasselas "As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: Answer, said she, great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the Invocation of the daughter of tny native zing. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitatio, from wnien taou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint." |