Can storied urn and animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 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 ecstacy 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: Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 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; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind: The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, With incense kindled at the muse's flame. Far from the maddening 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 sculptures deckt, Their name, their years spelt by th' unlettered Muse, And many a holy text around she strews 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? 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 we have 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 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, Or craz'd with care, or crossed in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the 'custom'd 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 gain'd from heaven, 'twas all he wish'd a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode, There they alike in trembling hope repose, The bosom of his father and his God. ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, And ye that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights the 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, 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. |