How deep yon azure dyes the sky, Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie, While through their ranks in silver pride The nether crescent seems to glide! The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, The lake is smooth and clear beneath, Where once again the spangled show Descends to meet our eyes below. The grounds which on the right aspire, In dimness from the view retire: The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. That steeple guides thy doubtful sight Among the livid gleams of night. There pass, with melancholy state, By all the solemn heaps of fate, And think, as softly-sad you tread Above the venerable dead, 'Time was, like thee they life possessed, And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.' Those graves, with bending osier bound, That nameless heave the crumbled ground, Quick to the glancing thought disclose, Where toil and poverty repose. The flat smooth stones that bear a name, The chisel's slender help to fame, (Which ere our set of friends decay Their frequent steps may wear away;) A middle race of mortals own, Men, half ambitious, all unknown. The marble tombs that rise on high, Whose dead in vaulted arches lie, Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones, Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones; These, all the poor remains of state, Adorn the rich, or praise the great; Who while on earth in fame they live, Are senseless of the fame they give. Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades, The bursting earth unveils the shades! All slow, and wan, and wrapped with shrouds They rise in visionary crowds, And all with sober accent cry, 'Think, mortal, what it is to die.' Now from yon black and funeral yew That bathes the charnel 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: '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.' A HYMN OF CONTENTMENT Lovely, lasting peace of mind! Sweet delight of humankind! 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, O whither art thou fled, To lay thy meek, contented head? What happy region dost thou please To make the seat of calms and ease? Ambition searches all its sphere Of pomp and state, to meet thee there. Increasing Avarice would find Thy presence in its gold enshrined.