Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Thoughts that breathe and words that burn. Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beneath the good how far, but far above the great. HYMN TO ADVERSITY. DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, Bound in thy adamantine chain With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' wo. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, The summer friend, the flattering foe; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. Wisdom, in sable garb array'd, Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend: Warm Charity, the general friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear, To soften, not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are, to feel, and know myself a man. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 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, 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 : 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. 1 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Now you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tombs 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? Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 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, unfathom'd 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 little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood; Th' applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 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 Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenour of their way. Their name, their years, spell'd by th' unletter'd Muse, For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd, For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, |