With Gray all this blithe whistling stopped together. Evening poems by
Dyer, Warton, and Collins had tended to be "pretty," but here again
Gray resisted temptation and regretfully omitted a stanza designed to
precede immediately the epitaph:
There scatter'd oft, the earliest of ye Year
By hands unseen, are Show'rs of Violets found;
The Red-breast loves to build & warble there,
And little Footsteps lightly print the Ground.
With similar critical tact Gray realized that one might have too much
of stately moral reflections unmixed with drama. Possibly such an
idea determined him in discarding four noble quatrains with which he
first designed to end his poem. After line 72 in the manuscript now in
Eton College appeared these stanzas:
The thoughtless World to Majesty may bow
Exalt the brave, & idolize Success
But more to Innocence their Safety owe
Than Power & Genius e'er conspired to bless
And thou, who mindful of the unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these Notes their artless Tale relate
By Night & lonely Contemplation led
To linger in the gloomy Walks of Fate
Hark how the sacred Calm, that broods around
Bids ev'ry fierce tumultuous Passion cease
In still small Accents, whisp'ring from the Ground
A grateful Earnest of eternal Peace
No more with Reason & thyself at Strife
Give anxious Cares & endless Wishes room
But thro the cool sequester'd Vale of Life
Pursue the silent Tenour of thy Doom.
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