The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 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 bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure; 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, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 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? -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 And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast The applause of listening senates to command, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenour of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 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, 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 the unhonoured Dead, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. One morn I missed him on the customed hill, 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, THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend. No further 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. Thomas Gray, 1716-1771. TO DAFFODILS [Hesperides, or the Works both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq., 1648.] Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early rising sun Has not attained his noon. Until the hasting day Has run But to the evensong: And having prayed together, we Will go with you along. K We have short time to stay, as you; As quick a growth to meet decay, We die, IN OBITUM M.S. X. MAIJ. 1614 [First printed from Lansdowne MS. 777, in the volume issued by Sir Egerton Brydges, 1815. Mr A. H. Bullen has suggested, in his Introduction to the Edition of Browne's Poems in the Muses Library, that the letters M.S. may stand for Maritae Suae. Browne's first wife appears to have died in 1614.] May! Be thou never graced with birds that sing, In thee all flowers and roses spring, Mine only died. William Browne, 1591-1643? AH WHAT AVAILS THE SCEPTRED RACE ["Simonidea," 1806. Republished, with corrections, in "Gebir Count Julian, and other Poems 1831."] Rose Aylmer, daughter of Henry, fourth Baron Aylmer, died in 1800. Ah what avails the sceptred race, |