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; 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, Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 25 30 35 40 45 Perhaps in some 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 Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; 55 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 little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 60 Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes, 65 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 conscious truth to hide, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet ev❜n these bones from insult to protect Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; 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 ling'ring look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. 70 75 80 85 90 For thee, who mindful of th' unhonoured Dead 95 If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 100 105 ΙΙΟ 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, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 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, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; The next with dirges due in sad array Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne. 115 Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.' THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gained from Heav'n ('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. 120 125 THE PROGRESS OF POESY I. I AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. A thousand rills their mazy progress take; 5 |