How jocund did they drive their team | Some mute, inglorious Milton here may afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Yet even these bones from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless Some frail memorial still erected nigh, sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; That teach the rustic moralist to die. 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 be hind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature | Fair Science frowned not on his humble cries, birth, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. And Melancholy marked him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sin cere; 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 further 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. ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. YE distant spires, ye antique towers, Her Henry's holy shade; Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way! Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! I feel the gales that from ye blow As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen The paths of pleasure trace, What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the flying ball? |