V.

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.

VI.

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.

VII.

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!

VIII.

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.

IX.

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.

X.

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 pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

XI.

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?

XII.

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:

XIII.

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.

XIV.

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,

XV.

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.

XVI.

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,

XVII.

Their lot forbăde; nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

XVIII.

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.

XIX.

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 tenor of their way.

XX.

Yet even 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.

XXI.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,

To teach the rustic moralist to die.

XXII.

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?

XXIII.

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries, Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

XXIV.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,

If 'chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

XXV.

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.

XXVI.

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreaths its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

XXVII.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, would he rove, Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

XXVIII.

"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,

Along the heath, and near his favorite tree: Another came, -nor yet beside the rill,

Nor

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

XXIX.

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne:
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stōne beneath yon agëd thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

XXX.

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.

XXXI.

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 ('t was all he wished) a friend.

XXXII.

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.

XLI.

ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

REV. SYDNEY SMITH.

A level colloquial style of delivery is appropriate for the delivery of the following remarks by the witty and celebrated Sydney Smith. The palace of St. James in London is used for royal levees. The American ambassador alluded to is John Adams.

See in Index, Parliament, wOUND, SMITH.

1. Ir is very difficult to make the mass of mankind believe that the state of things is ever to be otherwise than they have been accustomed to see it. I have very often heard old persons describe the impossibility of

making any one believe that the American Colonies could ever be separated from this country. It was always considered as an idle dream of discontented politicians, good enough to fill up the periods of a speech, but which no practical man, devoid of the spirit of party, considered to be within the limits of possibility.

2. There was a period when the slightest concession would have satisfied the Americans; but all the world was in heroics. One set of gentlemen met at the Lamb, and another at the Lion, blood-and-treasure men, breathing war, vengeance, and contempt; and in eight years afterwards, an awkward-looking gentleman in plain clothes walked up to the drawing-room of St. James's, in the midst of the gentlemen of the Lion and the Lamb, and was introduced as the ambassador from the United States of America.

3. Mild and genteel people do not like the idea of persecution, and are advocates for toleration; but, then, they think it no act of intolerance to deprive Catholics of political power. The history of all this is, that all men secretly like to punish others for not being of the same opinion with themselves, and that this sort of privation is the only species of persecution of which the improved feeling and advanced cultivation of the age will admit.

4. Fire and fagot, chains and stone walls, have been clamored away; nothing remains but to mortify a man's pride and to limit his resources, and to set a mark upon him by cutting him off from his fair share of political power. By this receipt, insolence is gratified, and humanity is not shocked.

5. The gentlest Protestant can see, with dry eyes, Lord Stourton excluded from Parliament, though he would abominate the most distant idea of personal cruelty to Mr. Petre. This is only to say that he lives in the nineteenth, instead of the sixteenth century, and