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 a-field! 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 pow'r, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, Can storied uru or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry sooth the dull cold car of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; 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: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness in the desert air. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes. Their lot forbade; nor circumscrib'd alone And shut the gates of mercy on mankind: 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 keep the noiseless tenour of their way. Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd Their name, their 'years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 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 th' unhonour'd dead, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, "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 craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on th' accustom'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: 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 Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAРН. 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, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gain'd from Heav'n, '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. |