When Britain first, at Heaven's command, I wake: how happy they who wake no Arose from out the azure main, 31 To reason, and on reason build resolve That column of true majesty in man— Assist me: I will thank you in the grave; The grave, your kingdom; there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine. But what are ye? Thou who didst put to flight 35 Primeval Silence, when the morning stars, Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball; O Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul; My soul which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure, 40 Alternately transported and alarmed! What can preserve my life, or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there. ROBERT BLAIR (1699-1746) From THE GRAVE While some affect the sun, and some the shade, Some flee the city, some the hermitage, Their aims as various as the roads they take Thy long-extended realms, and rueful Again the screech-owl shrieks: ungracious forgot, sound! I'll hear no more; it makes one's blood run chill. Quite round the pile, a row of reverend elms, 45 (Coeval near with that) all ragged show, Long lashed by the rude winds. Some rift half down Their branchless trunks; others so thin a-top, That scarce two crows could lodge in the same tree. Strange things, the neighbors say, have happened here: 50 Wild shrieks have issued from the hollow tombs; Dead men have come again, and walked about; And the great bell has tolled, unrung, untouched. (Such tales their cheer, at wake or gossiping, When it draws near the witching time of night.) 55 Oft in the lone church-yard at night I've seen, By glimpse of moonshine chequering through the trees, The school-boy, with his satchel in his hand, And buried midst the wreck of things Whistling aloud to bear his courage up, And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones, which were; 30 There lie interred the more illustrious dead. The wind is up: hark! how it howls! Methinks Till now I never heard a sound so dreary: Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird, 60 (With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,) That tell in homely phrase who lie below. Sudden he starts, and hears, or thinks he hears, 1 cowering. The sound of something purring at his heels; Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him, 65 Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows; Who gather round, and wonder at the tale Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly, That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand ODE WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746 How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod O'er some new-opened grave; and (strange Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 5 By forms unseen their dirge is sung; ODE TO EVENING If ought of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs and dying gales, O nymph reserved, while now the brighthaired sun 5 Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede1 ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hushed, save where the weakeyed bat, With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds IO As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, 15 Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale May not unseemly with its stillness suit, 1 embroidery. 20 |