ELEGY, WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. [GRAY.] THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, ; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r, Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twitt'ring 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 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, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, th' inevitable hour, Await a 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 thro' 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; 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 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 Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 1 Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbad: nor circumscrib'd alone The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 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. Yet ev❜n these bones from insult to protect, * In the first manuscript copy of this exquisite poem, the conclusion is different from that which its author afterwards composed; and though his after-thought was unquestionably the best, yet there is a pathetic melancholy in the four rejected stanzas, which highly claims preservation.-Mason's Notes on Gray. (These stanzas are inserted as a variation, in p. 186.) With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, |