With eyes of flame, and cool undaunted breast Victor he stood on Bellisle's rocky steeps---- Ah! gallant youth! this marble tells the rest, Where melancholy Friendship bends, and weeps. ELEGY Written in A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 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, 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, 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, How jocund did they drive their team afield! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 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; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to extasy the living lyre. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Full many a gem of purest ray serene, Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, Their lot forbad: nor circumscrib'd alone The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, |