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 bowed 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.

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

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 swayed, Or waked 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 repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed 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.

The 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 forbade : nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade thro' 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 learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered 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 decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered 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 resigned, 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;
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate,—

Haply some hoary-headed swain. may say,

'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

'One morn I missed him on the customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

'The next, with dirges due in sad array

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne :Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

The Epitaph.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth

A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair science frowned not on his humble birth, And melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to misery (all he had) a tear,

He gained from heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.

No farther 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.

SONNET ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST.

In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,

And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire: The birds in vain their amorous descant join ;

Or cheerful fields resume their green attire: These ears, alas! for other notes repine;

A different object do these eyes require: My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;

And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,

And new-born pleasure brings to happier men: The fields to all their wonted tribute bear:

To warm their little loves the birds complain :
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune :

Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd ; No very great wit, he believed in a God:

A post or a pension he did not desire,

But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.

IMPROMPTU, ON LORD HOLLAND'S SEAT AT KINGSGATE.

Old, and abandoned by each venal friend,

Here Holland formed the pious resolution To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend

A broken character and constitution.

On this congenial spot he fixed his choice;

Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighbouring sand; Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice,

And mariners, though shipwrecked, dread to land.

Here reign the blustering North and blighting East,
No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing;
Yet Nature could not furnish out the feast,
Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.
Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise,
Turrets and arches nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled monast'ries delude our eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.

'Ah!' said the sighing peer, 'had Bute been true,
Nor Mungo's, Rigby's, Bradshaw's friendship vain,
Far better scenes than these had blest our view,
And realized the beauties which we feign:

'Purged by the sword, and purified by fire,

Then had we seen proud London's hated walls; Owls would have hooted in St. Peter's choir,

And foxes stunk and littered in St. Paul's.'