oice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonored Dead[15]
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance,[16] by lonely Contemplation led, 95
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain[17] 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.[18] 100

"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, 105
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the customed hill,
Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree; 110
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 thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 115
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[19] frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own. 120

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 Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, 125
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

NOTE.--The _Elegy_ was finished at Stoke Poges in 1750, when the poet
was thirty-four years old. It was so popular that one edition followed
quickly upon another, and it was even translated into foreign languages.

Notice that throughout the poem the lines are of equal length, each
consisting of five feet or measures, and that in a stanza the alternate
lines rhyme.

[1.] The curfew was an evening bell which originally warned people to
cover their fires, put out their lights, and go to bed. It was
instituted in England after the Norma