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The curfew
tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind
slowly 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
sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And
drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save
that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl
does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near
her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
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 rude
forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
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 pow'r,
And all that
beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th'
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.
Th' applause of list'ning 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 forbad: nor
circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their
crimes confined;
Forbad 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 ingenuous 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
ev'n 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 th' 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 ling'ring look
behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul
relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in
our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who,
mindful of th' unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines
their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely
Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall enquire
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 noon-tide would
he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies would he rove;
Now
drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed
with care, or crossed in hopeless love.
"One morn
I missed him from the customed hill,
Along the heath,
and near his fav'rite 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 can'st 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:
He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear,
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.
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