A Criticism on the Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard: Being a Continuation of Dr. J----n's Criticism on the Poems of Gray

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G. Wilkie, 1783 - 90 pages

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Page xvii - 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...
Page xii - For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn Or busy housewife ply her evening care : No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Page xvi - 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.
Page xvii - One morn I missed him on the customed 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 church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.
Page xii - Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Page xii - Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, , The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
Page xvi - Brufhing with hafty fteps the dews away ' To meet the fun upon the upland lawn. ' There at the foot of yonder nodding beech * That wreathes its old...
Page 21 - 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.
Page xi - THE CURFEW tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Page xv - Mufe's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble ftrife, Their fober wifhes never learn'd to ftray ; Along the cool fequefter'd vale of life They kept the noifelefs tenor of their way. Yet...

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