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Or Danish chiefs, enriched with savage spoil,

To Victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine,

Reared the rude heap: or, in thy hallowed round,
Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line;

Or here those kings in solemn state were crowned:
Studious to trace thy wondrous origin,
We muse on many an ancient tale renowned.

SONNET TO THE RIVER LODON

Ah! what a weary race my feet have run,
Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,
And thought my way was all through fairy ground,
Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun,

Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive Memory traces back the round,
Which fills the varied interval between ;

Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure
No more return, to cheer my evening road!
Yet still one joy remains: that not obscure
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed,

From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature;
Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestowed.

THOMAS GRAY

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON

COLLEGE

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way.

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthrall?
What idle progeny succeed

To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labours ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty:

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:

Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possessed;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:

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Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever-new,

And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:

Yet see how all around 'em wait

The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, shew them where in ambush stand To seize their prey the murderous band! Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' altered eye,

That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath

A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their Queen:

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,

That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings; all are men,
Condemned alike to groan,
The tender for another's pain;
The unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY

Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,

And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore;

What sorrow was thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learned to melt at other's woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good:
Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer friend, the flattering foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb arrayed,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend;

Warm Charity, the genial friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band

(As by the impious thou art seen),

With thundering voice and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:

Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart;

Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound, my heart;

The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,

Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

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