Yet ev❜n these bones from insult to protect With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, No more, with reason and thyself at strife, And here the Poem was originally intended to conclude, before the happy idea of the hoary-headed Swain, &c. suggested itself to him. The third of these rejected stanzas has been thought equal to any in the whole Elegy. Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our Ashes s live their wonted Fires[43]. s Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. Petrarch, Son. 169. [43] Variation:-Awake and faithful to her wonted fires. Thus (says Mr. Mason) it stood in the first and some following editions, and I think rather better; for the authority of Petrarch does not destroy the appearance of quaintness in the other: the thought, however, is rather obscurely expressed in both readings. He means to say, in plain prose, that we wish to be remembered by our friends after our death, in the same manner as when alive we wished to be remembered by them in our absence. An anonymous writer has, in my opinion, much better illustrated the Poet's meaning in the following words: 6 "After observing the desire which appears in the humblest stations to indulge the melancholy pleasures of erecting some frail memorial, with uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, imploring the passing tribute of a sigh' for departed friends, the Poet, in the belief that the anticipation of this pious act is consolatory to the deceased themselves in their last moments, bursts into this beauti For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead, Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say, of dawn " Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, "To meet the sun upon the upland lawn [44], ful interrogatory. Who is there, what indifferent wretch ever existed, who, a prey to dull forgetfulness, left this pleasing anxious being, without casting a longing lingering look behind him? For (he adds) on some fond breast the parting soul relies; that is, some kind consoling friend is ever looked up to on those occasions, in whose soothing attentions, from whose pious tears the closing eye derives comfort, and the pangs of dissolution are assuaged; the companion, the sharer of the sunshine of life, who now, in the last gloomy hour of its evening, promises to pay that last sad and simple tribute which is to supply the place of fame and elegy. For, though sinking into the tomb, arrived at its very border, still are we alive to the feelings and sensibilities of humanity; in our very ashes still glow our former passions and affections." [44] Variation:-On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn. After which, in the first manuscript, followed this stanza: "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, "Or craz❜d with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, << Along the heath and near his favʼrite tree; “Another came; nor yet beside the rill, "Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; Him have we seen the greenwood side along, While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done, Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell song, With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun. "I rather wonder (says Mr. Mason) that he rejected this stanza, as it not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us peculiarly in this part of the Poem, but also completes the account of his whole day whereas, this Evening scene being omitted, we have only his Morning walk, and his Noontide repose." |