Alone, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,

Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,

Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
And eve that round the earth

Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;

There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls

The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness and of light are done;

High towards the star-lit sky

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Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun,

The night storm on a thousand hills is loud,

And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

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On thine unaltering blaze,

The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,

Fixes his steady gaze,

And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;

And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,

Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old,

Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,

Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray

The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

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THANATOPSIS

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware.
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

When thoughts

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth, unto the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air
Comes a still voice: Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim.
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

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ΙΟ

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To mix forever with the elements;

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.
AM. AND BRIT. AU. 15

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Yet not to thy eternal resting place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,
The powerful of the earth, — the wise, the good,
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;

The venerable woods; rivers that move

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 planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings, yet the dead are there.
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep: the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave

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Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man-
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

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So live that, when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves

To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry slave at night,

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Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

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CHAPTER XII

THOMAS GRAY, 1716-1771

"Of all English poets, Gray was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which poetical style seemed to be capable."—SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

THOMAS GRAY was born in Cornhill, London, in 1716. His father was a scrivener and exchange broker, whose unamiable character occasioned his separation from his wife, who seems to have had nothing in common with her brutal husband. Borne down by blighted affections and straitened circumstances, she struggled bravely to bring up respectably her family of eleven children. To the tender but unflinching devotion of this heroic woman, Thomas Gray owed his liberal education.

In 1734 Gray went to Cambridge; but the routine of university life, and its necessary associations, proved extremely uncongenial. With the studies too, at least as there taught, he had no sympathy. Mathematics he had little liking for under any circumstances; but even classical studies, of which he was passionately fond, lost much of their charm when doled out to him in prosy lectures.

The life of the mild and melancholy student was a subject of wonder, mingled with ridicule, to the students of Cambridge. At length, in 1756, the irritating annoyances and practical jokes to which these young men subjected the poet caused him to seek permanent refuge in