2. Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, 3. Save, that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain 4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mold'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the thamlet sleep. 5. The breezy call of +incense-breathing morn, The swallow, twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill telarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield; Their furrow oft the stubborn †glebe has broke; 8. Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 9. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 10. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 11. Can storied urn or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 12. Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid Some heart once pregnant with +celestial fire; 13. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, And froze the genial current of the soul. 14. Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; 15. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, 17. Their lot forbade; nor, circumscrib'd alone 18. The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide; 19. Far from the madding crowd's tignoble strife, They kept the noiseless +tenor of their way. 20. Yet e'en these bones, from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, 21. Their names, their years, spell'd by the unletter'd muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, 22. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd; 23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies; 24. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonor'd dead, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, Mutt'ring his wayward +fancies, he would rove; Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. Nor up the lawn, nor at the woods was he. 29. The next, with †dirges due, in sad farray, Slow through the church-yard path, we saw him borne. Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay, 'Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAPH. 30. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth to Fortune and to Fame, unknown: He gave to Mis'ry all he had,—a tear; He gain'd from Heav'n-'t was 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. LXXXV. - THE VOYAGE. FROM IRVING. 1. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make, is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes end employments, produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters, that separates the *hemispheres, is like a blank page in existence. There is no gradual transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is +vacancy, until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched, at once, into the bustle and novelties of another world. 2. In traveling by land, there is a continuity of scene, and a connection of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a lengthened chain," at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the chain is unbroken. We can trace it back, link by link; and we feel, that the last of them still grapples us to home. But a wide sea-voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes; a gulf, subject to tempests, and fear, and uncertainty, that makes distance +palpable, and return precarious. 3. Such at least was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the +horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its concerns, and I had time for meditation before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from my view, which contained all that was most dear to me in life, what vicissitudes might occur in it, what changes might take place in me before I should visit it again! Who can tell, when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain current of existence, or when he may return, or whether it may ever be his lot to review the scenes of his childhood? 4. I said, that at sea all is vacancy. I should correct the expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reverie, a sea-voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then, they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly +themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing, or to climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together, on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds, just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; to watch the gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores. 5. There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe, with which I looked down from my giddy hight, at the monsters of the deep at their uncouth *gambols; shoals of porpoises, tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge form above the surface, or the travenous shark, darting like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth, and of those wild *phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors. 6. Sometimes, a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glorious monument of human invention, that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the world into communion; has established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile |