Now from yon black and funeral yew,
  That bathes the charnal-house with dew,
  Methinks I hear a voice begin;
  (Ye ravens, cease your croaking din,
  Ye tolling clocks, no time resound
  O’er the long lake and midnight ground!)
  It sends a peal of hollow groans,
  Thus speaking from among the bones:  60

   ’When men my scythe and darts supply,
  How great a king of fears am I! 
  They view me like the last of things: 
  They make, and then they dread, my stings. 
  Fools! if you less provoked your fears,
  No more my spectre-form appears. 
  Death’s but a path that must be trod,
  If man would ever pass to God: 
  A port of calms, a state of ease
  From the rough rage of swelling seas. 70

   Why, then, thy flowing sable stoles,
  Deep pendent cypress, mourning poles,
  Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds,
  Long palls, drawn hearses, cover’d steeds,
  And plumes of black, that, as they tread,
  Nod o’er the ’scutcheons of the dead?

   Nor can the parted body know,
  Nor wants the soul these forms of woe: 
  As men who long in prison dwell,
  With lamps that glimmer round the cell, 80
  Whene’er their suffering years are run,
  Spring forth to greet the glittering sun: 
  Such joy, though far transcending sense,
  Have pious souls at parting hence. 
  On earth, and in the body placed,
  A few, and evil years, they waste: 
  But when their chains are cast aside,
  See the glad scene unfolding wide,
  Clap the glad wing and tower away,
  And mingle with the blaze of day!’ 90

* * * * *

  A HYMN TO CONTENTMENT.

  Lovely, lasting peace of mind! 
  Sweet delight of human kind! 
  Heavenly born, and bred on high,
  To crown the favourites of the sky
  With more of happiness below,
  Than victors in a triumph know! 
  Whither, oh! whither art thou fled,
  To lay thy meek, contented head? 
  What happy region dost thou please
  To make the seat of calm and ease? 10

   Ambition searches all its sphere
  Of pomp and state, to meet thee there. 
  Increasing Avarice would find
  Thy presence in its gold enshrined. 
  The bold adventurer ploughs his way,
  Through rocks amidst the foaming sea,
  To gain thy love; and then perceives
  Thou wert not in the rocks and waves. 
  The silent heart which grief assails,
  Treads soft and lonesome o’er the vales, 20
  Sees daisies open, rivers run,
  And seeks (as I have vainly done)
  Amusing thought; but learns to know
  That Solitude’s the nurse of Woe. 
  No real happiness is found
  In trailing purple o’er the ground;
  Or in a soul exalted high,
  To range the circuit of the sky,
  Converse with stars above, and know
  All Nature in its forms below; 30
  The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,
  And doubts at last for knowledge rise.