No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

25

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke.

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Var. V. 24. Or] Nor. MS. W.
V. 25. Sickle] Sickles. MS. W.

Sacrum et vetustis exstruat lignis focum
Lassi sub adventum viri."

See also Thomson. Winter, 311:

"In vain for him the officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm:
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire

With tears of artless innocence."

V. 24. "Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati."

30

Virg. Georg. ii. v. 523. W.

So Dryden. ed. Warton, vol. ii. p. 565:

"Whose little arms about thy legs are cast,

And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste."

See also Thomson. Liberty, iii. 171, and Ovid. Heroid. Ep. viii. 93. Hom. II. E. 408.

V. 26.

"Tis mine to tame the stubborn glebe."

Gay. Fabl. p. ii. xv.

Luke.

V. 27. "He drove afield." Lycidas, 27. W. Add Dryden. Virg. Eclog. ii. 38. "With me to drive afield." Luke. "To drive afield by morn the fattening ewes." A. Philips.

V. 28. "But to the roote bent his sturdie stroake, And made many woundes in the waste oake." Spenser. February. W. See also Dryden. Georg. iii. 639. "Labour him with many a sturdy stroke."

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,

Var. V. 35. Await] Awaits. MS. M. and W.

35

V. 37, 38. "Forgive, ye proud, th' involuntary fault,
If memory to these no trophies raise."
MS. M. and W.

V. 33. "Very like," says the editor, (in a note to the following passage of Cowley,) "in the expression as well as sentiment, to that fine stanza in Gray's Elegy, vol. ii. p. 213, Hurd's ed.

66 6 Beauty, and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power,
Have their short flourishing hour;

And love to see themselves, and smile,
And joy in their pre-eminence a while:
E'en so in the same land

Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers together stand.
Alas! Death mows down all with an impartial hand.'"

Gray's stanza is, however, chiefly indebted to some verses in his friend West's Monody on Queen Caroline:

"Ah me! what boots us all our boasted power,

Our golden treasure, and our purple state;

They cannot ward the inevitable hour,

Nor stay the fearful violence of fate."

Dodsley. Misc. ii. 279.

V. 36. In Kippis. Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. p. 429, in the Life of Crashaw, written by Hayley, it is said that this line is "literally translated from the Latin prose of Bartholinus in his Danish Antiquities." See Hagthorpe. Poems, p. 47. "Glory doth thousands to the grave betray.”

V. 39.

"the roof o' the chamber With golden cherubims is fretted."

Cymbel. act ii. sc. 4. W.

Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 40

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

45

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to extasy the living lyre:

Var. V. 47. Rod] Reins. Ms. M.

"This majestical roof fretted with golden fire."

Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2.

V. 40. "There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,

In service high, and anthem clear."

Il Pens. 163. W.

V. 41. "Heroes in animated marble frown," Temple of Fame, 73. W. Add Virg. Æn. vi. 849. "vivos ducent de marmore vultus." Luke.

V. 43. "But when our country's cause provokes to arms.

V. 44. "And sleep in dull cold marble."

Pope. Ode.

Hen. VIII. act iii. sc. 2. V. 47. "Sunt mihi quas possint sceptra decere manus,' Ovid. Ep. v. ver. 86. "Proud names that once the reins of empire held," Tickell. Poem to E. of Warwick, ver. 37.

V. 48. "Waken raptures high," Par. Lost, iii. 369. And Lucret. ii. 412: "Mobilibus digitis expergefacta figurant." Begin the song, and strike the living lyre." Cowley. And Pope. Winds. For. 281:

"where Cowley strung His living harp, and lofty Denham sung.' V. 50. "Rich with the spoils of nature."

W.

Brown. Rel. Med. p. 27.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; 50 Chill penury repress'd their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

55

V. 51. "So just thy skill, so regular my rage."

Pope to Jervas.

"Be justly warn'd with your own native rage."

Pope. Prol. to Cato, 43. W.

And, "How hard the task! how rare the godlike rage."
Tickell. Prol. (Steele. Misc. p. 70.)

V. 53. "That like to rich and various gems inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep."

And see Young. "Ocean," st. xxiv.

Comus, ver. 22.

"There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a fair pearle in the bosome of the sea, that never was seene, nor never shall bee." Bishop Hall. Contemplations, 1. vi. p. 872. See Quart. Rev. No. xxii. p. 314. ad Fr. Barberini Poem, p. 148. Μάργαρα πόλλα βαθύς συγκρύπτει Kúμασι пóvтos. and see T. Warton. Milton, p. 234.

V. 54. "Apavтa kεvoμwvos ßáoŋ. Lycophr. Cass. 1277.

Mathias.

V. 55. "Like roses that in deserts bloom and die."
Pope. Rape of the Lock, iv. 157. W.

Also Chamberlayne. Pharonida, part ii. b. iv. p. 94:
"Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent
Of odours in unhaunted deserts."

And Young. Univ. Passion, Sat. v. p. 128:

"In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,

She rears her flow'rs, and spreads her velvet green;
Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
And waste their music on the savage race.

.

Some village-Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,

The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

59

65

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Var. V. 58. Fields] Lands, erased in мs. M.

Add Philip. Thule:

"Like woodland flowers, which paint the desert glades, And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades."

For the expression "desert air," Wakefield refers to Pindar. 01. i. 10: Ερήμας δι αἰθέρος. Also Fragm. Incert. cxvi. "Howl'd out into the desert air." Macbeth, act iv. sc. 3. Rogers.

V. 58. "With open freedom little tyrants rag'd."
Thoms. Winter.

Luke.

"The tyrants of villages." Johnson. Debates, i. 268. V. 59. So Philips, in his animated and eloquent preface to his Theatrum Poetarum, p. xiv. ed. Brydges: "Even the very names of some who having perhaps been comparable to Homer for heroic poesy, or to Euripides for tragedy, yet nevertheless sleep inglorious in the crowd of the forgotten vulgar."

V. 60. Edwards, the author of "The Canons of Criticism," here added the two following stanzas, to supply what he deemed a defect in the poem:

"Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charms

Shone with attraction to herself unknown;

Whose beauty might have bless'd a monarch's arms,
Whose virtue cast a lustre on a throne.