Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenour of their way. Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, 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 lingering 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' unhonour'd dead, If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn, "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, “Him have we seen the greenwood side along, "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd 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 can'st read) the lay, Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." * This stanza, which completes the account of the Poet's day, although in the author's MS. has hitherto appeared but in the form of a note; but as Mr. Mason observes, "without it, we have only his morning walk and his noon-tide repose." THE EPITAPH.* Here rests his head upon the lap of earth A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown: Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 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. 66 Before the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines however are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation: "There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are showers of violets found; And little footsteps lightly print the ground.' The Editor of the present edition of the Poet, has ventured to recall into the Elegy, one stanza (the fourth) which appears only in the margin of former editions; upon a hint received from a gentleman resident at Stoke Park, in the following let"I do not see how the edition could suffer, in a critical point of view, by the restoration of that fine stanza of Gray's ter: into the body of the Elegy. It is acknowledged by Mason and others, to be equal to any in the poem; and, certainly it contains more to characterize it than any other. The cause of its unfortunate rejection by the author is manifest, and shows that it was not from his having disapproved it. From two preceding, and a following stanza, which were rejected with it, he withdrew two ideas, and some lines, which he transferred and worked up. in other parts of the Elegy, thus leaving this fine stanza insulated : and because it so became unfitted for the particular place for which he had first designed it, he dropped it altogether. But yet it contained only an abrupt and sudden reflection; which was suitable equally to other passages or places, though not employed there. This he appears not to have considered; and he thereby incautiously despoiled his poem of a sentiment, not only fitting, but moreover eminently requisite. Now, this sentiment finds a natural place immediately after the third stanza;— after the descriptions of darkness and silence, and before the minuter particulars of the church-yard are entered upon. It would, therefore, I think, most sublimely constitute the fourth stanza of the Elegy. In that place, it would prepare the mind for the solemn sequel, and throw a religious sanctity over it; at the same time correcting and explaining, what has always given me and others, offence and pain,-the equivocal expression, ' each in his narrow cell for ever laid :' showing, that the Poet only meant for ever,' with reference to the scenes of this present life." SONNET ON THE DEATH OF MR. WEST. IN vain to me the smiling mornings shine, A different object do these eyes require: To warm their little loves the birds complain: I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, And weep the more, because I weep in vain. |