Here GRATIO mingles with his kindred clay, Who liv'd contented, and who died resign'd; He let no slavish rules his actions sway, But the warm impulse of an honest mind. Of heav'n's free blessings he bestow'd a part, And open'd wide his hospitable gate; He fed the poor, for gen'rous was his heart; He sooth'd the sad, for pity was his mate. To him the boon of good old age was giv'n, And now, when parted from this world of woe, He rests in holy faith of God and heav'n, To meet that mercy which he gave below. MOSCHUS. * * * * * ELEGY. THE DECAYED MONASTERY. How loves the mind to muse o'er long-past hours, While o'er the scene the swift ideas dance; How sweet absorb'd in memory's pleasing pow'rs, To wing the soul in retrospective glance! But nought avails the retrospective view, If calm reflection turn it not to good; In vain shall thought the backward theme pursue, If mind not profit by the theme pursu'd. Thus o'er some antique ruin, time-defac'd, The sons of science oft delight to stray, To trace the inscription on the desert waste, And pierce time's dark veil by its lucid ray. But vain the labours of the enquiring sage, If thence the mind no moral truth sublimes; Nor learns from heroes of a distant age, To love their virtues, and to shun their crimes. Beneath yon hillock, by the embow'ring grove, The once-fam'd convent's mouldering walls arise; Come, pensive muse, that lov'st these scenes to rove, Now rising vesper rules the evening skies! Explore the gloom with silent step, and slow, While musing melancholy hovers near; Haply from hence some moral truth may flow, And frame a song that virtue's self may hear. This sacred pile, for solitude design'd, To pious age might form a still retreat; But bigot zeal here rankled in the mind, And superstition fix'd her baneful seat. Yon pending column, moss ygrown and rude, Now torn by time, and faithless to its trust; Once mark'd the proud spot where a temple stood, And mystic rites made consecrate its dust. 'Twere impious thought these cloister'd shades to roam, Or wake dull echo with one cheerful sound; No stranger eye might meditate the dome, No foot unhallow'd tread the sacred ground. But now ev'n here the slimy serpent crawls, And hence the gloom-born owlet wheels her way; Loud shrieks the hoarse bat from the hollow walls, And the gaunt night-wolf meditates his prey. As o'er the mind these varied visions steal, They speak instruction to the musing bard; From these vain efforts of religious zeal, How clear the moral, yet how few regard.