Yet ev❜n these bones from infult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the paffing tribute of a figh.

Their name, their years, fpelt by th' unletter'd Mufe,
The place of fame and elegy supply ;

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the ruftic moralift to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleafing anxious being e'er refign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the chearful day,
Nor caft one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On fome fond breast the parting foul relies,
Some pious drops the clofing eye requires ;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires,

Awake and faithful to her wonted fires.

Thus (fays Mr. Mafon) it ftood in the first and fome following "editions, and I think rather better; for the authority of Petrarch

❝ does

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Doft in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred Spirit fhall inquire thy fate,
Haply fome hoary-headed fwain may say,
'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
• Brushing with hafty steps the dews away,
'To meet the fun upon the upland lawne.

• There

"does not deftroy the appearance of quaintnefs in the other the "thought however is rather obfcurely expreffed in both readings. He <6 means to say, in plain profe, that we wish to be remembered by our "friends after our death, in the fame manner as when alive we wished "to be remembered by them in our abfence: this would be expreffed "clearer, if the metaphorical term fires was rejected, and the line run "thus:

"Awake and faithful to her firft defires."

In Chaucer's Reve's Prologue, v. 3880,

Yet in our afhen cold is fire yrekin.

There is, fays Mr. Tyrwhitt, fo great a resemblance between this line and the above, that I fhould certainly have confidered the latter as an imitation, if Mr. Gray had not referred us to the fonnet of Petrarch as his original.

VARIATION.

e On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn.

After which, in the first manuscript, followed this ftanza:

There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, • That wreathes its old fantastic roots fo high, His listlefs length at noon-tide would he stretch, < And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in fcorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove: 'Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, 'Or craz❜d with care, or crofs'd in hopeless love. • One morn I miss'd him on the custom❜d hill, 6 Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree : • Another came; nor yet beside the rill, • Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he;

'The next with dirges due in fad array,

Slow through the church-way path we faw him borne, Approach and read (for thou canft read) the lay, 'Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn f.

Him have we seen the greenwood fide along,

While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done,
Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell fong,

With wistful eyes purfue the fetting fun.

The

"I rather wonder (fays Mr. Mason) that he rejected this stanza, as "it not only has the fame fort of Doric delicacy which charms us pe"culiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account of "his whole day. whereas, this evening fcene being omitted, we have "only his morning walk and his noontide repose."

f Between this line and the epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inferted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in fome of the first editions,

but

The EPITAPH.

ERE refis his head upon the lap of Earth,

HE

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 fincere,
Heav'n did a recompence as largely fend:
to Mis'ry all be bad, a tear,

He

gave

He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all be wifh'd) a friend.

No farther feek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his fralities from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) &

The bofom of his Father, and his God.

but afterwards omitted; because he thought that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines however are, in themselves, exquifitely fine, and demand preservation.

There fcatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unfeen, are fhow'rs of violets found;
The redbreaft loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

g

IMITATION.

paventofa fpeme.

Petrarch, fon. 114.

G.

HYMN

HYMN to ADVERSITYh.

D

By the Same.

AUGHTER of Jove, relentless Pow'r,

Thon Tamer of the human breast,

Whofe iron fcourge and tort'ring hour
The Bad affright, afflict the Best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain

The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy Sire to fend on earth

Virtue, his darling Child, defign'd,

To thee he gave the heav'nly Birth,

And bade to form her infant mind.

Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year fhe bore:

What forrow was, thou bad'ft her know,

And from her own fhe learn'd to melt at others' woe.

An imitation, as Dr. Johnfon obferves, of the 35th Ode of the first book of Horace, beginning, O Diva, gratum quæ regis Antium; but Mr. Gray has excelled his original, by the variety of his fentiments, and by their moral application.

2

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