And near his nest in that eventful hour, In the South May He who winged the shaft when Tell stood forth, Though, such the grasp, not even in death relinquished.' ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. BY GRAY. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The Eagle and Child is a favourite sign in many parts of Europe. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, 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, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 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 bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 9 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 vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 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 forbade : nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, With incense kindled at the Muses' flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? 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. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. "One morn I missed him on the 'customed 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: "The next, with dirges due in sad array Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne :Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." 2 THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, 1 Here, in his first MS., followed this stanza : "Him have we seen the greenwood side along, While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done; 2 In the poem, as originally printed, the following beautiful stanza preceded the epitaph: "There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are showers of violets found; It was afterwards omitted, because he thought it too long a parenthesis. |