The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray

« 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, << Šlow thro' the churchway-path we saw him borne: “ Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay 6 Gravid on the stone beneath yon' aged thorn.”S

120

THE EPITAPH.
HERE rests his head upon the lap of Earth,

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 sincere ;
Heav'n did a recompense as largely fend:
He
gave

to mis’ry all he had, a tear ; He gain’d from Heav'n ('twas all he wilt'd) a friend.

No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repofc)
The bofom of his Father and his God.

128

I 23

Him have we feen the greenwood fide along,
While o'er the heath we hy'd, our labour done,
Oft' as the woodlark pip'd her farewel song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting fun.

$ In the early editions the following lines were adı ded, but the parenthesis was thought too long:

There scatter'd oft', the earliest of the year,
By hands unteen, are show'rs of vi'lets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little tootsteps lightiy print the ground.
Paventosa fpeme.

Petrarci, S.: 14

5

EPITAPH

ON MRS. MARY CLARK E. f
Lo! where this filent marble weeps,

A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps;
A heart, within whose facred cell,
The peaceful Virtues lov'd to dwell:
Affection warm, and faith fincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony, in death, resign'd,
She felt the wound the left behind.
Her infant image here below
Sits smiling on a father's wo,
Whom what awaits while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days?
A pang, to secret forrow dear,
A figh, an unavailing tear,
Till time shall ev'ry grief remove
With life, with mem'ry, and with love.

1

16

TRANSLATION FROM STATIUS.
THI
HIRD in the labours of the disc came on,

With sturdy step and flow, Hippomedon ;
Artful and strong he pois’d the well-known weight,
By Phlegyas warn'd, and fir'd by Mnestheus' fate,
That to avoid and this to emulate.
His vig'rous arm he try'd before he fung,
Brac'd all his nerves and ev'ry finew ftrung,

+ This lady, the wife of Dr. Clarke, physician at Epsom, died April 27th, 1757, and is buried in the church of Beckenham, Kent.

10

Then with a tempest's whirl and wary eye
Purfu'd his caft, and hurl'd the orb on high ;
The orb on high, tenacious of it's course,
True to the mighty arm that gave it force,
Far overleaps all bound, and joys to see
It's ancient lord secure of victory:
The theatre's green height and woody wall
Tremble ere it precipitates it's fall ;

IS
The pond'rous mass sinks in the cleaving ground,
While vales and woods and echoing hills rebound.
As when from Ætna's smoking fummit broke,
The eyeless Cyclops heav'd the

craggy

rock, Where Ocean frets beneath the dashing oar, And parting furges round the vessel roar; 'Twas there he aim'd the meditated harm, And scarce Ulysses 'scap'd his giant arma A tiger's pride the victor bore

away, With native spots and artful labour gay,

25 A shining border round the margin roll'd, And calm'd the terrors of his claws in gold. 27

Cambridge, May 8th, 1736.

20

GRAY OF HIMSELF. TOO poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,

He had not the method of making a fortune; Could love and could hate, fo was thought something No very great wit, he believ'd in a God:

(odd; A poft or a pension he did not desire, But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.

FINI S.

CONTENTS.

Page.

3

Life of the Author, &c.