Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death? Perhaps, in this 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: 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 mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, The applause of listening senates to command. To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes Their lot forbade: nor, circumscribed 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 kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones, from insult to protect, Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, 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, lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now, drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. "One morn, I missed him on the customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite 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 '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 gave to Misery (all he had) a tear; He gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend. |