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 Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, No children run to lisp their sire's return, 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 jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. 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, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted va alt The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed. Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The 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 forbad: nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, The struggling pangs of conscience 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. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Their name, their years, spelt by the unletter'd Muse, And many a holy test around she strews, For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of the unhonour'd dead, If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn: "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would be stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies would he rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he: "The next, with dirges due in sad array Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gain'd from heaven ('twas all he wished) 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. In Gray's first M.S. of the "Elegy," after the eighteenth stanza, cnding with the word "flame," were the four following stanzas: The thoughtless world to majesty may bow, But more to innocence their safety owe, And thou who, mindful of the unhonour'd dead, To wander in the gloomy walks of fate: Hark! how the sacred calm, that breathes around, No more, with reason and thyself at strife, Here the poem was originally intended to conclude. After the twenty-fifth stanza, ending with the word "lawn," was the following stanza: Him have we seen the greenwood side along, And in some of the first editions, immediately before "The Epitaph," was the following stanza: There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The tempest stretches from the steep The beasts grow tame, and near us creep, As help were in the human Yet, while the cloud-wheels roll and grind The hills have echoes; but we find No answer for the thunder. Mrs. Browning. The plague runs festering through the town, - |