2. Now fades the glimm'ring 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 :

3. Save, that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,

The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mold'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the thamlet sleep.

5. The breezy call of +incense-breathing morn,

The swallow, twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill telarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
Nor children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

7. 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!

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If mem'ry o'er their tomb no †trophies raise,
Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing tanthem swells the note of praise.

11. Can storied urn or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

12. 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 ectasy the living lyre.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.
16. The applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

17. Their lot forbade; nor, circumscrib'd alone
Their glowing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

18. The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide;
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame;
Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride,
With tincense kindled at the muse's flame.

19. Far from the madding crowd's tignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray:
Along the cool, tsequester'd vale of life,

They kept the noiseless +tenor of their way.

20. Yet e'en 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.

21. Their names, their years, spell'd by the unletter'd muse, The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,
Teaching the rustic moralist to die.

22. 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, ling'ring look behind?

23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies;
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

24. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonor'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,
If, chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
25. Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,
Brushing, with hasty step, the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
26. There, at the foot of yonder nodding beach,

That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high,
His listless length, at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that bubbles by.
27. Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Mutt'ring his wayward +fancies, he would rove;
Now, drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn,

Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
28. One morn, I miss'd him on the accustom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree:
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the woods was he.

29. The next, with †dirges due, in sad farray,

Slow through the church-yard path, we saw him borne. Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay, 'Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

30. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,

A youth to Fortune and to Fame, unknown:
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
31. Large was his bounty, and his soul, sincere:
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis'ry all he had,—a tear;

He gain'd from Heav'n-'t was all he wish'd-a friend.

32. 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.

LXXXV. - THE VOYAGE.

FROM IRVING.

1. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make, is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes end employments, produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters, that separates the *hemispheres, is like a blank page in existence. There is no

gradual transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is +vacancy, until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched, at once, into the bustle and novelties of another world.

2. In traveling by land, there is a continuity of scene, and a connection of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a lengthened chain," at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the chain is unbroken. We can trace it back, link by link; and we feel, that the last of them still grapples us to home. But a wide sea-voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes; a gulf, subject to tempests, and fear, and uncertainty, that makes distance +palpable, and return precarious.

3. Such at least was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the +horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its concerns, and I had time for meditation before

I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from my view, which contained all that was most dear to me in life, what vicissitudes might occur in it, what changes might take place in me before I should visit it again! Who can tell, when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain current of existence, or when he may return, or whether it may ever be his lot to review the scenes of his childhood?

4. I said, that at sea all is vacancy. I should correct the expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reverie, a sea-voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then, they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly +themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing, or to climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together, on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds, just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; to watch the gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores.

5. There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe, with which I looked down from my giddy hight, at the monsters of the deep at their uncouth *gambols; shoals of porpoises, tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge form above the surface, or the travenous shark, darting like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth, and of those wild *phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors.

6. Sometimes, a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glorious monument of human invention, that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the world into communion; has established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile