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 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; The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, 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 applause of listening senates to command, And read their history in a nation's eyes. Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured 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, 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, 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 1 The eye that contemplates it well perceives Ordered by an intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries. Below a circling fence, its leaves are seen No grazing cattle, through their prickly round, But as they grow where nothing is to fear, I love to view these things with curious eyes, And in this wisdom of the holly tree Can emblems see Wherewith, perchance to make a pleasant rhyme, Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear To those, who, on my leisure would intrude, 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, All vain asperities, I, day by day Would wear away; Till the smooth temper of my age should be And, as, when all the summer trees are seen The holly leaves their fadeless hues display But when the bare and wintry woods we see, So serious should my youth appear among So would I seem, amid the young and gay, That in my age as cheerful I might be 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, |