1716-1771.
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day.
No more: where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.
Progress of Poesy.
O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.
Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
The Bard.
Give ample room, and verge enough.
Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard.
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.
And read their history in a nation's eyes.
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind.
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes, live their wonted fires.
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere.
He gave to misery (all he had) a tear.
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude.
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.