ANEL EGY, Written in a Country Church Yard. This is a very fine poem, but overloaded with epithet. The heroic meafure with alternate rhime is very properly adapted to the folemnity of the fubject, as it is the flowest movement that our language admits of. The latter part of the poem is thetic and interesting. T1 HE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, pa The lowing herd winds flowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the fight, And all the air a folemn ftillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight, The moping owl does to the Moon complain Beneath thofe rugged elms, that yew-trees fhade, 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 tall of incenfe-breathing morn, The fwallow, twitt'ring from the ftraw-built fhed, The cock's fhrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more fhall roufe them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or bufy housewife ply her evening care: Nor children run to lifp their fire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kifs to share. Oft did the harvest to their fickle yield, Their furrow oft the ftubborn glebe has broke; Their homely joys, and deftiny obfcure; The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Back to its manfion call the fleeting breath? Some heart once pregnant with celeftial fire: Hands, Hands, that the rod of empire might have fway'd, Or wak'd to extafy the living lyre. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, And froze the genial current of the foul. The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, And wafte 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 reft; Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of lift'ning fenates to command, To scatter plenty o'er a fmiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbad: nor circumfcrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; With incenfe, kindled at the mufe's flame. Yet ev❜n these bones from infult to protect, Some frail memorial ftill erected nigh, With uncouth rhimes and shapeless fculpture deck'd, Implores the paffing tribute of a figh. Their name, their years, fpelt by th' unletter'd mufe, And many a holy text around she ftrews, Some pious drops the clofing eye requires : His liftlefs length at noon-tide would he stretch, Now Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree : Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. The next, with dirges due, in fad array, Slow thro' the church-yard path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou can'ft read) the lay, Grav'd on the flone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAPH. Here refts his head upon the lap of earth, He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. No farther feek his merits to difclofe, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repofe) The bofom of his Father and his God. |