The moon that shines with borrow'd light; Should be sung, and sung by me: PARNELL. SECTION II. An elegy written in a country church-yard. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight, Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r, Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield; Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke How jocund did they drive their teams afield! How bow'd 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 pow'r, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If mem❜ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where thro' 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 flatt'ry sooth 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 sway'd, Or wake to ecstacy the living lyre. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, And waste it sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, With incense kindled at the muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenour of their way. Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd musê, For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn, Or craz❜d with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. One morn I miss'd him on the accustom'd hill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. The next, with dirges due, in sad array, Slow thro' the church-yard path we saw him borne: Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Grav'd 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 Mis'ry all he had, a tear; He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) 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. SECTION III. Ode to wisdom. THE solitary bird of night Thro' the pale shades now wings his flight, |