And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:

Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread Goddess lay thy chast'ning hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band

(As by the impious thou art seen)

With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,

With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

Thy form benign, oh Goddess! wear, Thy milder influence impart,

Thy philosophic train be there,

To soften, not to wound my heart.
The gen'rous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan;

What others are, to feel, and know myself a man.

GRAY

-0000

CHAP. XI,

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE

YE distant spires, ye antique tow'rs,

That crown the wat❜ry glade,

Where grateful Science still adores

Her HENRY's holy shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow

Of WINDSOR's heights th' 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.

A

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade !
Ah, fields belov'd in vain!

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
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 sooth,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

Say, father THAMES, (for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,

Disporting on thy margin green,

The paths of pleasure trace,)

Who foremost now delight to cleave,

With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed

To chace the rolling circles speed,

Or urge the flying ball?

While some, on earnest business bent,

Their murm'ring labours ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty :

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
1 hey hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fea: ful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by Fancy fel,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild Wit, Invention ever new,

And

And lively Cheer of Vigour born :
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
'That fly th' approach cf morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,
No care beyond to-day:

Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train !
Ah! show them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey, the murd❜rous band!
Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury passions tear, The vultures o.

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1

mind,

Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind ;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim visag'd comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness', alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil'd,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen;
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen:

This

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That ev'ry lab'ring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are mea, Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since Sorrow never comes too late,

And Happiness too swiftly flies:
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
Tis folly to be wise.

GRAY.

CHAP. X.

ELEGY, WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH YARD,

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

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Y

Beneath

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade. Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring 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 twitt'ring from the straw built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, ot
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy house wie ply her ex'ning care:
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 bow'd 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 pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour;

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tombs no trophies raise,
Where thro' 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 Beeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery sooth the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps