For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe° has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! 25 How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 30 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 35 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. 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? 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: 40 45 But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Some village Hampden,° that, with dauntless breast, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined: The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, With incense kindled at the Muses' flame.° Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet e'en 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. 80 Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,° For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 85 90 90 95 100 "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 favorite 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 105 110 Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne: Approach and read (for thou can'st read°) the lay 'Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."" 115 THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of earth Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gave to misery all he had, a tear, 120 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. 125 NOTES 1. 1. curfew. The word is derived from the French and means fire-cover. The crowded timber-built towns of the Middle Ages were continually menaced by fire, which was especially liable to break out while the inhabitants slept. The police regulation accordingly arose that at the ringing of a bell in the evening all fires on open hearths must be covered or banked for the night. This custom was said to have been introduced into England by William the Conqueror. 1. 2. The lowing herd wind. The picture of the slowmoving cattle that follow the various cow-paths across the pasture toward the barn is clearly indicated. Wind instead of winds emphasizes the fact that the herd is a group of individuals. 1. 4. And leaves the world to darkness and to me. When the ploughman disappeared in the twilight the poet was left alone with the rural scenes and the graveyard about him, but presently they too disappeared in the darkness and the poem became subjective a record of a poet's thoughts concerning the life and death of the simple poor. 1. 5. Now fades the glimmering landscape. Such pictures were favorites with romantic writers. They liked the uncertain light of evening and the quiet disturbed only by such sounds as the blundering May-beetle's buzzing flight and the muffled tinkle of distant sheep-bells as the woolly creatures sank one by one down to sleep. Especially in keeping with romantic setting is the hoot from the church tower of the mysterious owl. |