But oh what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! III. 2. 'Girt with many a baron bold Sublime their starry fronts they rear; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In bearded majesty, appear. In the midst a form divine! Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line; What strings symphonious tremble in the air, Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings, 'The verse adorn again III. 3. Fierce war, and faithful love, And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest. In buskined measures move Pale grief, and pleasing pain, With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me; with joy I see The different doom our fates assign. Be thine despair, and sceptred care, To triumph, and to die, are mine.' He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 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. 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, For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 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. 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, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or 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 ecstasy the living lyre. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Chill penury repressed their noble rage, 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 Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone 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 tenour of their way. Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonoured dead, Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 'Oft have we 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, 'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful-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 favourite 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 |