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POEMS

OF

THOMAS GRAY.

ODE.ON THE SPRING.

Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of Spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade',
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care:
The panting herd's repose:

Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,

And float amid the liquid noon 2:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the Sun 3.

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To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter through life's little day.

In Fortune's varying colours drest:
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance;
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low

The sportive kind reply;
"Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets;

No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown:
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-
We frolic while 'tis May."

ODE

ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT,

DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES.

'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dy'd

The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclin'd,

Gaz'd on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declar'd;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

She saw; and purr'd applause.

4 While insects from the threshold preach, &c. M. Green, in the Grotto. Dodsley's Miscellanies, vol. v. p. 161.

L

146

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Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green

The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?

The captive linnet which enthrall ?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labours ply
'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty;

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay Hope is theirs, by Fancy fed,
Less pleasing, when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,

The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue;
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer of vigour born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to day.
Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train,
Ah, show them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey, the murderous band!
Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love, shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy,

The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; And keen Remorse, with blood defil'd, And moody Madness 3 laughing wild Amid severest woe.

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Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen:

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,

The unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate!
Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY,
Za

Τὸν φρονεῖν βροτὰς ὁδι -
σανία, τῷ πάθει μαθών
Θένια κυρίως ἔχειν.

Eschylus, in Agamemnone.

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge, and torturing hour,
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone.

When first thy sire to send on Earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse; thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others woe.

Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity receiv'd,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.

Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!

Not in thy gorgon terrour's clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band,

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WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

THE Curfew tolls' the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind 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 near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.

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 th' inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The peeling anthem swells the note of praise.

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Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

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 ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathom'd 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.

Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad; por circumscrib'd alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

`Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
deck'd,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh,

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires 2.

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THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

I.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake1,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress take;
The laughing flowers that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:
The rocks, and nodding groves, rebellow to the roar.

Oh! sovereign of the willing soul 2,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen cares,

And frantic passions, hear thy soft control:
On Thracia's hills the lord of war
Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command:
Perching on the scepter'd hand 3

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terrour of his beak, and lightning of his eye.

Thee the voice, the dance, obéy 4,
Temper'd to thy warbled lay,
O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen,
On Cytherea's day,

With antic sports and blue-ey'd pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence beating
Glance their many-twinkling feet 5.

Slow melting strains their queen's approach declare:
Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay.
With arts sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way:

'Awake, my glory: awake, lute and harp. David's Psalms. Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments, Αἰολης μολπή, Αἰόλιδες χορδαὶ, Αἰολίδων πνοαὶ Folian song, Eolian strings, the breath of the Eolian flute.

The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all its touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions.

1 Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar.

This is a faint imitation of some incomparable lines in the same ode.

O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of
Love 6.

II.

Man's feeble race what ills await 7,
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? .
Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky:
Till down the eastern cliffs afar 8
Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of

[war.

9 In climes beyond the solar 10 road,
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The Muse has broke the twilight gloom

To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the odorous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat

In loose numbers wildly sweet

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,

Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep",
Isles, that crown th' Egean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep,
How do your tuneful Echoes languish
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?

6 Λάμπει δ' ἐπὶ πορφυρίησι.
Παρείησι φῶς ἔρωτα.

Phrynichus, apud Athenæum.

7 To compensate the real and imaginary ills of
life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same
Providence that sends the day, by its cheerful pre-
night.
sence, to dispel the gloom and terrours of the

8 Or seen the morning's well-appointed star
Come marching up the eastern hills afar.

Cowley.
remotest and most uncivilized nations: its con-
9 Extensive influence of poetic genius over the
nection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally
attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh
fragments, the Lapland and American songs.]
10 Extra anni solisque vias-

Tutta lontana dal camin dei sole.

Virgil.

Petrarch. Canzon 2.

11 Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacThe earl of Surrey, and sir Thomas Wyatt, had quainted with the writings of Dante, or of Petrarch. travelled in Italy, and had formed their taste there;"

+ Power of harmony to produce all the graces of Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton immotion in the body.

5 Μαρμαρυγὰς θηεῖτο ποδων· θαύμαζε δὲ θυμῷ.

Homer, Od. →.

proved on them: but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since.

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