Remembrance wakes with all her busy train, Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. In all my wand'rings round this world of care, And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, O blest retirement, friend to life's decline, Retreats from care, that never must be mine, For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; The sad historian of the pensive plain. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, And still where many a garden flower grows wild, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his place; |