The healthful offspring that adorned their house.
The following beautiful imitation, by an American poet, is the best that has ever been offered to supply another remarkable deficiency,—the absence of such reflections on the sublime truths and inspiring hopes of Christianity as the scene would naturally awaken in a pious mind. With the exception of two or three somewhat equivocal expressions, Gray says scarcely a word which might not have been said by any one who believed that death is an eternal sleep, and who was disposed to regard the humble tenants of those tombs as indeed “each in his narrow cell forever laid.” A supplement according so well with the Elegy, both in elevation of sentiment and force of diction, as the following, might appropriately have followed the stanza,—
“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.”
No airy dreams their simple fancies fired,
No thirst for wealth, nor panting after fame;
But truth divine sublimer hopes inspired,
And urged them onward to a nobler aim.
From every cottage, with the day, arose
The hallowed voice of spirit-breathing prayer;
And artless anthems, at its peaceful close,