ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!

[blocks in formation]

III. 3, Line 3.

And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.

Comus, and his midnight crew. Ode for Music. Line 2.

While bright-eyed Science watches round.

The still small voice of gratitude.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,1
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Line 11.

Line 64.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 1.

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn.
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

Stanza 4.

Stanza 5.

Stanza 8.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Await alike the inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Stanza 9.

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?

1 The first edition reads,

The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea.

Stanza 10.

Stanza 11.

Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 12.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;1
Chill penury repressed their noble rage,

1

And froze the genial current of the soul. Stanza 13.

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.2 Stanza 14.

Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

Stanza 15.

And read their history in a nation's eyes. Stanza 16.

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind. Stanza 17.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;

Along the cool sequestered vale of life,

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Stanza 19. Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Stanza 20.

1 Compare Sir Thomas Browne, Relig. Med. Page 177.

2 Compare Young, Love of Fame, Satire v. Line 228. Page 266. Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.

Churchill, Gotham, Book ii. Line 20.

3 Usually quoted "even tenor of their way."

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 21.

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? Stanza 22.

E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.1
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
One morn I missed him on the customed hill,
Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree;

Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Stanza 23.

Stanza 25.

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. Stanza 28. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,

A youth to fortune and to fame unknown:

Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy marked him for her own. The Epitaph. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heaven did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to misery (all he had) a tear,

He gained from heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend,

Ibid.

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:

Toid.

Iron sleet of arrowy shower

Hurtles in the darkened air. The Fatal Sisters. Line 3.

1 Compare Chaucer, The Reves Prologue. Page 3.

2 But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him; marked;

him for his own. Walton, Life 'of Donne.

And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

Sonnet. On the Death of Mr. West.

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,

Chastised by sabler tints of woe.

Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 45.

The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,

The common sun, the air, the skies,

To him are opening paradise.

Line 53.

And hie him home, at evening's close,
To sweet repast and calm repose.

Line 87.

From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.

Line 93.

The social smile, the sympathetic tear.

Education and Government.

When love could teach a monarch to be wise,
And Gospel-light first dawned from Bullen's eyes.1

Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

A Long Story.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune.

On his own Character.

A favorite has no friend. On the Death of a Favorite Cat.

Now as the Paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon. To Mr. West. Letter iv. Third Series.

1 This was intended to be introduced in the Alliance of Education and Government. — Mason's edition of Gray, Vol. iii. p. 114.

DAVID GARRICK. 1716–1779.

Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.

Their cause I plead,

Prologue to the Gamesters. plead it in heart and mind;

A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.1

Prologue on Quitting the Stage in 1776.

Prologues like compliments are loss of time;
"T is penning bows and making legs in rhyme.

Prologue to Crisp's Tragedy of Virginia.

Let others hail the rising sun:

I bow to that whose course is run.2

This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet.

Hearts of oak are our ships,

Hearts of oak are our men.3

On the Death of Mr. Pelham.

Jupiter and Mercury.

Hearts of Oak.

JAMES MERRICK. 1720-1769.

Not what we wish, but what we want.

Oft has it been my lot to mark

A proud, conceited, talking spark.

Hymn.

The Chameleon.

1 I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling. - Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy: Democritus to the Reader.

Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.

Virgil, Eneid, Lib. i. 630.

2 Pompey.... bade Sylla recollect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun.-Dryden's Plutarch, Clough's ed., iv. 66, Life of Pompey.

3 Our ships were British oak,

And hearts of oak our men.-S. J. Arnold, Death of Nelson.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »