Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade, / Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, / Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, / The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
Can storied urn or animated bust / Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? / Can honour’s voice provoke the silent dust, / Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife, / Their sober wishes never learned to stray; / Along the cool sequester’d vale of life / They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey, / This pleasing anxious being e’er resigned, / Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, / Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
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.
Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, / Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll; / Chill penury repress’d their noble rage, / And froze the genial current of the soul.
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.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, / The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, / The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, / And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
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 ling’ring look behind?
