Selections from Five English Poets | Page 5

we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 115 Graved 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[19] frowned not on his humble birth, And Melancholy marked him for her own. 120
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 gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose, 125 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.

NOTE.--The Elegy was finished at Stoke Poges in 1750, when the poet was thirty-four years old. It was so popular that one edition followed quickly upon another, and it was even translated into foreign languages.
Notice that throughout the poem the lines are of equal length, each consisting of five feet or measures, and that in a stanza the alternate lines rhyme.
[1.] The curfew was an evening bell which originally warned people to cover their fires, put out their lights, and go to bed. It was instituted in England after the Norman Conquest. The word comes from the French couvrir (cover) and feu (fire).
[2.] Incense-breathing Morn. The poet regards the morning as a person; that is, he personifies morning. Personification is seldom used now, but the eighteenth-century poets delighted in it. It is frequently employed in this poem.
[3.] Glebe, soil, ground.
[4.] The boast of heraldry, _i.e._ whatever has to do with high rank or pride of birth.
[5.] Where through the long-drawn aisle, etc. It was the custom to bury the poorer people of a village in the churchyard, and the rich or high-born in the church.
[6.] Storied urn. Funeral urns such as were used by the ancients were frequently decorated with scenes from the life of the deceased.
[7.] Animated, _i.e._ life-like.
[8.] Provoke, call forth, call back to life.
[9.] Full many a gem, etc. One of the best-known stanzas in English poetry.
[10.] Village-Hampden. John Hampden was an English patriot who refused to pay taxes levied by the king without the consent of Parliament, and who died in 1643 from a wound received while fighting for the liberties of England.
[11.] Milton. John Milton (1608-1674), the author of _Paradise Lost_, is generally ranked as the greatest English poet after Shakespeare.
[12.] Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), the famous Protector, is now regarded by historians in general as one of the foremost champions of English liberty.
[13.] Still, always.
[14.] Th' unlettered Muse. In Greek mythology the Muses were nine goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences, song, and the different kinds of poetry. The true poet was supposed to be inspired by them. Gray imagines a new kind of Muse who inspires the writers of crude epitaphs.
[15.] For thee, who mindful, etc. Gray refers to himself as the writer of this poem.
[16.] Chance, perchance.
[17.] Swain, countryman. By swain the poets usually mean a country gallant or lover.
[18.] Lawn, a cleared place in a wood, not cultivated. Now, of course, the word always means grassland near a house which is kept closely cut.
[19.] Science, knowledge in general, not natural science only.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH
1728-1774
Goldsmith was born in Pallas, an out-of-the-way hamlet in Longford County, Ireland, where his father, the curate, was looked upon as "passing rich, with forty pounds a year." Not long after, the family removed to Lissoy, in the County of Westmeath, where they lived in much comfort. Here Oliver passed his childhood and youth, and it is doubtless to Lissoy that his thoughts returned when he wrote of "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain." As a boy he had his share of troubles. In school he was pronounced "a stupid, heavy blockhead," and he was often made sport of by his companions on account of his awkward figure and his homely face, pitted with the smallpox. In his eighteenth year he entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, that is, a poor student who pays in part for his tuition by doing certain kinds of work. After four years devoted to study--spiced with a good deal of fun--he graduated at the foot of his class.
At twenty-one he showed no special bent. For a while he lived with his mother, now a widow, and idled his time away with gay companions. After being refused a position in the church, he resolved to try teaching; but this occupation proved so little to his taste that he decided to give it up and study medicine. With the help of a generous uncle he entered the medical school at Edinburgh, leaving Ireland never to return. At the end of a year and a half he concluded that foreign travel would do more