Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.
But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.
Scatter plenty o’er a smiling land.
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
From toil he wins his spirits light, From busy day the peaceful night; Rich, from the very want of wealth, In heaven’s best treasures, peace and health.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling’ring look behind?
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
When love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel-light first dawn’d from Bullen’s eyes.
If the best man’s faults were written on his forehead, he would draw his hat over his eyes.
And moody madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.
I shall be but a shrimp of an author.
What female heart can gold despise? What cat ’s averse to fish?
To brisk notes in cadence beating, glance their many-twinkling feet.
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway’d, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
He pass’d the flaming bounds of place and time: The living throne, the sapphire blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw; but blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night.
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray; Along the cool sequester’d vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil.