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Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm.

Visions of glory, spare my aching sight.

Part ii. St. 2.

Part iii. St. 1.

And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest. Part. iii. St. 3.

The still small voice of gratitude. Ode to Music. Line 64.

ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

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?

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.*

* Rich with the spoils of nature.-Sir THOMAS BROWNE. Med. Part i. Sect. xiii.

Relig.

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.

To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes.

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

Along the cool sequestered vale of life,
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

Nor cast one longing lingering look behind.

E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes, live their wonted fires.+

* Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.

CHURCHILL. Gotham. Book II.

Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken.

CHAUCER. Reve's Prologue.

THE EPITAPH.

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 (t was 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.

The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,

The common sun, the air, the skies,

To him are opening paradise.

Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune; He had not the method of making a fortune.

On his own Character.

A favourite has no friend. On the Death of a Favourite Cat.

Rich windows that exclude the light,

And passages that lead to nothing.

A Long Story.

Now as the Paradisaical pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying

with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon. To Mr. West. 3d Series. Letter iv.

WILLIAM COLLINS. 1720-1756.

OW sleep the brave who sink to rest,

By all their country's wishes blessed! Ode in 1746.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;

By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,

To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,

To dwell a weeping hermit there.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,

Ibid.

While yet in early Greece she sung. The Passions. Line 1.

Filled with fury, rapt, inspired.

Ibid. Line 10.

'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild.

Ibid. Line 28.

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Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell ; 'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.

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232

COTTON-HOME.

Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almost lost in Art.

To Sir Thomas Hanmer on his Edition of Shakspere.

In yonder grave a Druid lies. Ode on the Death of Thomson.

NATHANIEL COTTON. 1721-1788.

F solid happiness we prize,

IF

Within our breast this jewel lies;

And they are fools who roam :

The world has nothing to bestow;

From our own selves our joys must flow,

And that dear hut,

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Thus hand in hand through life we'll go ;

Its checkered paths of joy and woe

With cautious steps we'll tread.

Ibid. St. 13.

JOHN HOME. 1722-1808.

IN the first days

IN

Of my distracting grief, I found myself As women wish to be who love their lords.

Douglas. Act i. Sc. 1.

My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father fed his flocks.

Ibid. Act. Sc. 1.

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