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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 busy housewife ply her evening 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 bowed 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 power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour: :-

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
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.

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 ingenious shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride,
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

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 even 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, spelt 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;
Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured 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.

"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.

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

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath and near his favourite 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 church-way path we saw him borne; Approach and read (for thou cans't 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: gave to Misery all he had, a tear,

He

He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished), a friend.

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.

Gray.

THE HOLLY TREE.

O READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The holly tree?

1

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,

Ordered by an intelligence so wise

As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.

Below a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize :

And in this wisdom of the holly tree

Can emblems see

Wherewith, perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.

Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear
Harsh and austere;

To those, who, on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude;

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,

Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,

All vain asperities, I, day by day

Would wear away;

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.

And, as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,

The holly leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly tree?

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;

So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they;

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly tree.

THE MINSTREL'S CURSE.

(From the German of Uhland.)

Southey.

In times of yore a castle stood with turrets high and steep,

It glanced over all the land, and far as ocean's deep; And richly scented coronals the encircling gardens made, And cool refreshing fountains in rainbow glory played.

Upon his throne with pallid face and dark imagining, Enriched with land and victory, there sate a haughty king, And sad and fearful are his thoughts-and rage burns on his cheeks

And what he writes, he writes in "blood"-and scourge is all he speaks.

And to this ancient castle once two minstrels bent their

way,

The locks of one were golden hued, the other's silvery

grey,

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