Page:Gray - Le Cimetière de campagne, 1805.djvu/21

« Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
« Mutt’ring his wayward fancies, he would rove :
« Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn,
« Or craz’d 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 fav’ite 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 church-way path we saw him borne :
« Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay
« Grav’d 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,
Heav’n did a recompence as largely send :
He gave to mis’ry all he had, a tear,
He gain’d from Heav’n (’twas ail he wish’d) a friend.
Nofarther 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.