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 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, With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? rges due in sad array, church-way path we saw him borne. (for thou canst read) the lay one beneath yon aged thorn:" THE EPITAPH upon the lap of Earth ine and to Fame unknown. d not on his humble birth, marked him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 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. Thomas Gray [1716–1771] "AND THOU ART DEAD" Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminissel AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though Earth received them in her bed, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I loved, and long must love, To me there needs no stone to tell Yet did I love thee to the last, Who didst not change through all the past To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, Uphold thy drooping head; Yet how much less it were to gain, And more thy buried love endears DIRGE CALM on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit, rest thee now! E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod, His seal was on thy brow. Dust, to its narrow house beneath! Soul, to its place on high! They that have seen thy look in death No more may fear to die. Lone are the paths, and sad the bowers, In heaven, is now thine own. Felicia Dorothea Hemans [1793-1835] A DIRGE Now is done thy long day's work; |