But 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.

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.

Some village-Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little Tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

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Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

60

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad: nor circumscrib'd alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

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75

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect

Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of Fame and Elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For 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?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies;
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries;
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tales relate;

If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"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.

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85

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"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies would he 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'rite 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,

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ΠΙΟ

Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.—

115

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 recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,

He gain'd from Heaven ('t was all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther 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.

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NOTES ON

THE DESERTED VILLAGE

1. Auburn: Goldsmith obtained the name from his friend and fellowmember of the Literary Club, Bennet Langton (Forster's Life, II, 206). There is an Auburn in Wiltshire, but it is not Goldsmith's.

2. swain: a favorite word for young man, lover, or shepherd, in the set or conventional poetical phraseology of the eighteenth century. Goldsmith uses it here in the sense of rustic or countryman.

3. smiling spring: the first of the many personifications, of which the eighteenth century was especially fond, in the poem. Other and more typical examples are the personified abstractions, ll. 68, 81, 319, *321, 403, etc. But few of these (so virtue, 1. 108; folly, 1. 270; Poetry, 1. 407; and two or three more) are capitalized in the original editions. 4. parting summer: departing. Cf. "parting day," Gray's Elegy; "parted from the jousts," Tennyson's Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 618. Depart" formerly meant separate. "Part" and "depart" have exchanged meanings.

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5. bowers: Goldsmith was partial to this word. Cf. ll. 33, 37, 47, 86, 366.

10. cot: cottage (the older meaning of the word). Cf. “poure folke in cotes," Langland, Piers Plowman, C, x, 72; also Burns's The Cotter's Saturday Night. The word occurs often as a suffix in place-names: Charlcote, etc.

12. decent church: decent is used in its root sense of comely, becoming. Sir Walter Scott wrote of Lissoy (Miscellaneous Prose Works, 1834, III, 250):

The church which tops the neighboring hill, the mill, and the brook, are still pointed out; and a hawthorn has suffered the penalty of poetical celebrity, being cut to pieces by those admirers of the bard who desired to have classical toothpick cases and tobacco stoppers. Much of this supposed locality may be fanciful; but it is a pleasing testimony to the poet in the land of his fathers.

Cf. also the account of Dr. Strean, who was Henry Goldsmith's successor as curate of Kilkenny West, near Lissoy (Forster's Life, II, 207).