For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, No children run to lisp their sire's return, Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield; Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 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? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Full many a gem of purest ray serene Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast Th' applause of listening senates to command, Their lot forbad; nor circumscribed alone The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Their name, their years, spelt by th' 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, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 66 To meet the sun upon the upland lawn : "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 66 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, he would rove, Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, 66 "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, Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere; He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear; He gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God. GRAY. What the Voice said. MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil, "Lord!" I cried in sudden ire, "From thy right hand, clothed with thunder, Shake the bolted fire! "Love is lost, and Faith is dying: "Here the dying wail of Famine, "Where is God, that we should fear Him?' Thus the earth-born Titans say; 'God! if thou art living, hear us!' Thus the weak ones pray. "Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding," 66 Spake a solemn Voice within; Weary of our Lord's forbearance, |