GRAY. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homewards plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering 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 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 harrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team a-field! 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. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, Can storied urn and animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honour'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 ecstacy the living lyre: But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Chill penury repressed their noble rage, Full many a gein 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 eves, 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, Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculptures deckt, Their name, their years spelt by th' unlettered Muse, And many a holy text around she strews 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 th' unhonoured dead, If chance by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate: Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 66 Oft we have seen him at the peep of dawn, Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, Iis listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping woful wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or crossed in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the 'custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree, Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; |