ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. HE curfew tolls the knell of | The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, T The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn Or busy housewife ply her evening care, No children run to lisp their sire's return 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; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed 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. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, Where through the long-drawn aisle and | To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined, Back to its mansion call the fleeting Forbade to wade through slaughter to a breath? throne And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet, even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial, still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply, And many a holy text around she strews That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, The applause of listening senates to com- Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, mand, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? |