Ah happy hills, ah pleafing shade, Ah fields belov'd in vain, Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A ftranger yet to pain! I feel the gales, that from ye A momentary bliss bestow, blow, As waving fresh their glad fome wing, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring. SAY, Father THAMES (for thou haft seen Full many a sprightly race, Difporting on thy margent green, Who foremost now delight to cleave To chafe the rolling circle's speed, Or urge While fome, on earnest business bent, Their murm'ring labours ply 'Gainft gráver hours, that bring constraint To fweeten liberty: Some bold adventurers difdain The limits of their little reign, Gay Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed, Lefs pleasing when poffeft; The tear forgot as foon as shed, The funshine of the breaft: Alas, regardless of their doom, No sense have they of ills to come, Yet fee how all around them wait, And black Misfortune's baleful train! Thefe fhall the fury Paffions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful Anger, pallid fear, And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Ambition Ambition this fhall tempt to rife, Then whirl the wretch from high, The ftings of Falsehood those shall try, Lo, in the vale of years beneath A grifly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, Lo, Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the foul with icy hand, And flow-confuming Age. To each his suff'rings: all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since forrow never comes too late, GRAY. CHAP. CHA P. X. ELE GY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YAR D. TE 'HE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind flowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the fight, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r, Beneath thofe ragged elms, that yew-tree's fhade, The rude forefathers of the hamlet fleep. The breezy call of incenfe-breathing Morn, For them no more the blazing hearth fhall burn, No No children run to lifp their fire's return, Oft did the harveft to their fickle yield, Let no ambition mock their useful toil, The boaft 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, Can ftoried urn or animated buft, Back to its manfion call the fleeting breath? Perhaps in this neglected fpot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celeftial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have fway'd, |