Her infant image, here below,

Sits fmiling on a father's woe:

Whom what awaits, while yet he strays

Along the lonely vale of days?

A pang to fecret forrow dear;

A figh; an unavailing tear;

Till Time fhall ev'ry grief remove,

With Life, with Memory, and with Love.

ELEGY

E LE G Y

WRITTEN IN A

COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

E LE GY

WRITTEN IN A

COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind flowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness, and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the fight, And all the air a folemn ftillness holds, .

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the diftant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of fuch, as wand'ring near her secret bower, Moleft her antient folitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's fhade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet fleep.

The breezy call of incenfe-breathing Morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the ftraw-built shed, The cock's fhrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more fhall roufe them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth fhall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening-care;

No children run to lifp their fire's return,

Ör climb his knees the envied kifs to fhare.

Oft