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. Large was his bounty, and his foul sincere,

Heav'n did a recompence as largely send: He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a tear;

He gain’d from Heav'n ('twas all he wish’d) 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,

LYTTLETON.

AT length escap'd from ev'ry human eye,

From ev'ry duty , ev'ry care,
That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share ,
Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;
Beneath the gloom of this embow'ring shade,
This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,

And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love

Can on th' ennobled mind bestow,

Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our grofs desires, inelegant and low.
Ye tufted groves, ye gently-falling rills,

Ye high o'ershadowing hills ,
Ye lawns gay-smiling with eternal green,

Oft have you my Lucy seen!
But never shall you now behold her more:

Nor will she now, with fond delight,
And taste refin’d, your rural charms explore.
Clos’d are those beauteous eyes in endless night,
Those beauteous eyes, where beaming us’d to shine
Reason's pure light, and Virtue's spark divine.

Oft

Oft would the Dryads of these woods rejoice

To hear her heavenly voice;
For her despising, when she deign’d to sing,

The sweetest songsters of the spring :
The woodlark and the linnet pleas'd no more,

The nightingale was mute,

And every shepherd's flute
Was cast in scorn away,
While all attended to her sweeter lay.
Ye larks and linnets, now resume your song:

And thou, melodious Philomel,

Again thy plaintive story tell; For death has stopp'd that tuneful tongue, Whose music could alone your warbling notes excel.

In vain I look around

O’er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;

Where oft we us’d to walk;

Where oft in tender talk
We saw the summer sun go down the sky;

Nor by yon fountain's side,

Nor where its waters glide
Along the valley, can she now be found:
In all the wide-stretch'd prospect's ample bound,

No more my mournful eye

Can aught of her espy, But the sad facred earth where her dear relics lie:

O shades of Hagley, where is now your boast?

Your bright inhabitant is lost.
You she preferr’d to all the gay resorts
Where female vanity might wish to shine,

The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts.
Her modest beauties shunn’d the public eye:

To your fequester'd dales

And flower-embroider'd vales,
From an admiring world she chose to fly.
With Nature there retir’d, and Nature's God,

The silent paths of wisdom trod,
And banish'd every passion from her breast;

But those, the gentlest and the best,
Whose holy flames with energy divine
The virtuous heart enliven and improve,
The conjugal and the maternal love.

Sweet babes! who, like the little playsul fawns,
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns,

By your delighted mother's side,

Who now your infant steps shall guide ?
Ah! where is now the hand, whose tender care
To every virtue would have form’d your youth,
And strew'd with flow'rs the thorny ways of truth?

O loss beyond repair!
O wretched father! left alone,
To weep their dire misfortune, and thy own!

How shall thy weaken’d mind, oppress’d with woe,

And, drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave, Perform the duties that you doubly owe!

Now she alas! is gone,
From folly and from vice their helpless age to save?

Where were ye, Muses, when relentless fate
From these fond arms your fair disciple tore;

From these fond arms, that vainly srove

With hapless, ineffectual love,
To guard her bofom from the mortal blow ?
Could not your favouring power, Aönian maids,
Could not, alas! your power prolong her date;

For whom so oft, in these inspiring shades,
Or under Camden's moss-clad mountains hoar,

You open'd all your sacred store;
Whate'er your ancient sages taught,

Your ancient bards sublimely thought,
And bade her raptur'd breast with all your spirit glow?

Nor then did Pindus or Castalia's plain,
Or Aganippe's fount, your steps detain,
Nor in the Thespian vallies did you play;
.Nor then on Mincio's bank

Beset with osiers dank,
Nor where Clitumnus rolls his gentle stream,

Nor where, through hanging woods,

Steep Anio pours his floods,
Nor yet where Meles or Ilissus stray.