Great Cian's son: of Madoc old
He ask'd no heaps of hoarded gold;
Alone in nature's wealth array'd,
He ask'd and had the lovely maid.

To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row,
Thrice two hundred warriors go:
Every warrior's manly neck
Chains of regal honour deck,
Wreathed in many a golden link:
From the golden cup they drink
Nectar that the bees produce,
Or the grape's ecstatic juice.
Flush'd with mirth and hope they burn:
But none from Cattraeth's vale return,
Save Aeron brave, and Conan strong,
(Bursting through the bloody throng)
And I, the meanest of them all,
That live to weep and sing their fall.

HAVE ye seen the tusky boar*,
Or the bull, with sullen roar,
On surrounding foes advance?
So Caradoc bore his lance.

CONAN'S name, my lay, rehearse,
Build to him the lofty verse,

Have ye seen, &.] This and the following short fragment ought to have appeared among the Posthumous Pieces of Gray; but it was thought preferable.

E

Sacred tribute of the bard,
Verse, the hero's sole reward.
As the flame's devouring force;
As the whirlwind in its course;
As the thunder's fiery stroke,
Glancing on the shiver'd oak;
Did the sword of Conan mow
The crimson harvest of the foe.

EPITAPH

ON MRS. CLARKE.

Lo! where this silent marble weeps,
A friend, a wife, a mother sleeps:
A heart within whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues loved to dwell.
Affection warm, and faith sincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony, in death resign'd,
She felt the wound she left behind.
Her infant image here below,
Sits smiling on a father's woe:
Whom what awaits, while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days?

to insert them in this place with the preceding fragment from the Gododin.

A pang, to secret sorrow dear;
A sigh; an unavailing tear;
Till time shall every grief remove,
With life, with memory, and with love.

EPITAPH

ON SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMS.

Written at the request of Mr. Frederick Montagu, who intended to have inscribed it on a monument at Belleisle, at the siege of which Sir W. Williams was killed, 1761.

HERE, foremost in the dangerous paths of fame, Young Williams fought for England's fair

renown;

His Mind each Muse, each Grace adorn'd his frame,

Nor envy dared to view him with a frown.

At Aix, his voluntary sword he drew,

There first in blood his infant honour seal'd; From fortune, pleasure, science, love he flew, And scorn'd repose when Britain took the field.

With eyes of flame, and cool undaunted breast,

Victor he stood on Belleisle's rocky steepsAh, 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,

The lowing herd winds 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 to her secret bower;

Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around,
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whispering from the

ground,

A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's

shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering 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 bow'd 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 power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave. Await alike the' inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.