26 ’There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
       That wreathes its old fantastic root so high,
     His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
       And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

  27 ’Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
       Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove;
     Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn,
       Or crazed with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.

  28 ’One morn I miss’d him on the accustom’d 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: 

  29 ’The next, with dirges due, in sad array,
       Slow through the churchway-path we saw him borne: 
     Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay
       Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn:’[2]

  THE EPITAPH.

  30 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.

  31 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
       Heaven did a recompense as largely send: 
     He gave to misery all he had—­a tear;
       He gain’d from Heaven—­’twas all he wish’d—­a friend.

    32 No further 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.

[Footnote 1:  This part of the elegy differs from the first copy.  The following stanza was excluded with the other alterations:—­

  Hark! how the sacred calm, that breathes around,
    Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease,
  In still small accents whispering from the ground
    A grateful earnest of eternal peace. ]

[Footnote 2:  In early editions, the following stanza occurred:—­

  There scatter’d oft, the earliest of the year,
    By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
  The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
    And little footsteps lightly print the ground. ]

* * * * *

  EPITAPH ON MRS JANE CLARKE.[1]

  Lo! where this silent marble weeps,
  A friend, a wife, a mother sleeps;
  A heart, within whose sacred cell
  The peaceful Virtues loved to dwell: 
  Affection warm, and faith sincere,
  And soft humanity were there. 
  In agony, in death resign’d,
  She felt the wound she left behind. 
  Her infant image here below
  Sits smiling on a father’s woe: 
  Whom what awaits while yet he strays
  Along the lonely vale of days? 
  A pang, to secret sorrow dear,
  A sigh, an unavailing tear,
  Till time shall every grief remove
  With life, with memory, and with love.