Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771)
English poet, classical scholar, and professor of history at Cambridge University.
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.
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.
See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend.
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take.
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond today.
He passed the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where angels tremble, while they gaze,
He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
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.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
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 ling'ring look behind?
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
Beneath the good how far,—but far above the great.
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding sheet of Edward's race.
Give ample room and verge enough,
The Characters of hell to trace.
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.
And moody madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.