Her infant image here below Sits smiling on a father's woe: Whom what awaits, while yet he strays A sigh; an unavailing tear; Till time shall every grief remove, EPITAPH ON SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMS. HERE, foremost in the dangerous paths of fame, Young Williams fought for England's fair renown. His mind each Muse, each Grace adorned his frame, Nor Envy dared to view him with a frown. At Aix his voluntary sword he drew, There first in blood his infant honor sealed; From fortune, pleasure, science, love, he flew, And scorned repose when Britain took the field. With eyes of flame, and cool undaunted breast, Victor he stood on Belleisle's rocky steepsAh, gallant youth! this marble tells the rest, Where melancholy Friendship bends, and weeps. 14* ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 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; 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, 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; But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, 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 Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined 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, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, Some pious drops the closing eye requires : For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn; There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His 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 would he rove: Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. |