Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Ilands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 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. 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, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes; Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone 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. Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet ev'n these bones, from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered musc, 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 the unhonoured dead, If chance by lonely contemplation led, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 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 accustomed hill, 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 gave to misery all he had-a tear; 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; |