Along the cool, sequestered vale of life 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, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, 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 "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. "One morn I missed him on the customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite 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 canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon agèd thorn:" THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 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. Thomas Gray THANATOPSIS To him who in the love of Nature holds A various language; for his gayer hours Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, To Nature's teachings, while from all around- Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes So live, that when thy summons comes to join To that mysterious realm, where each shall take Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch William Cullen Bryant CROSSING THE BAR Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar. Alfred Tennyson |