To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:

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 resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,-
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Muttering his wayward fancies would he rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed 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 favourite tree: Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

"The next, with dirges due in sad array

Slow through the churchway path we see him borne: Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

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 soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear,

He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther 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.

In Gray's first MS. of the "Elegy," after the eighteenth stanza, ending with the word "flame,” were the four following stanzas:

The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,

Exalt the brave, and idolize success; But more to innocence their safety owe,

Than power or genius e'er conspired to bless.

And thou who, mindful of the unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate,

By night and lonely contemplation led

To wander in the gloomy walks of fate:

Hark! how the sacred calm, that breathes around,
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whispering from the ground,
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

No more, with reason and thyself at strife,
Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;
But through the cool sequester'd vale of life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom.

Here the poem was originally intended to conclude.