GRAY'S ELEGY.

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,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

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.

15

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,

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,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

16

GRAY'S ELEGY.

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.

Yet, e'en these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial, still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelled by the unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;

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

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;
Some pious drops the closing eye requires:
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,

If, chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire 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.

GRAY'S ELEGY

"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.

66

Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,

66

17

Or crazed with care, or crossed with hopeless love.

One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite 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 churchway 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
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown:
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

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- 'twas all he wished a friend.

18 THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOore.

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.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

WOLFE.

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our Hero we buried.

We buried him darkly; at dead of night;
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. 19

We thought

as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow —

How the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head

And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ;

But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock tolled the hour for retiring, And we heard the distant and random gun, That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory. We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, But left him—alone with his glory!