Thomas Gray. 1716-1771. John Bartlett, comp. 1919. Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.

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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Thomas Gray. (1716–1771)

What female heart can gold despise?
What cat ’s averse to fish?

On the death of a Favourite Cat.

A fav’rite has no friend!

On the death of a Favourite Cat.

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 1.

    Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
  Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray’d,
  A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
  A momentary bliss bestow.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 2.

They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 4.

    Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
  Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
  The sunshine of the breast.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 5.

    Alas! regardless of their doom,
  The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
  Nor care beyond to-day.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 6.

Ah, tell them they are men!

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 6.

And moody madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 8.

    To each his suff’rings; all are men,
  Condemn’d alike to groan,—
The tender for another’s pain,
  Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
  And happiness too swiftly flies?
  Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
  ’T is folly to be wise. 1

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 10.

    Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
  Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort’ring hour
  The bad affright, afflict the best!

Hymn to Adversity.

From Helicon’s harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take.

The Progress of Poesy. I. 1, Line 3.

Glance their many-twinkling feet.

The Progress of Poesy. I. 3, Line 11.

O’er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love. 2

The Progress of Poesy. I. 3, Line 16.

Her track, where’er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and gen’rous shame,
Th’ unconquerable mind, 3 and freedom’s holy flame.

The Progress of Poesy. II. 2, Line 10.

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

The Progress of Poesy. III. 1, Line 12.

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.

The Progress of Poesy. III. 2, Line 4.

Bright-eyed Fancy, hov’ring o’er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn. 4

The Progress of Poesy. III. 3, Line 2.

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
Beneath the good how far,—but far above the great.

The Progress of Poesy. III. 3, Line 16.

    Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
  Confusion on thy banners wait!
Though fann’d by Conquest’s crimson wing,
  They mock the air with idle state.

The Bard. I. 1, Line 1.

Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream’d like a meteor to the troubled air. 5

The Bard. I. 2, Line 5.

To high-born Hoel’s harp, or soft Llewellyn’s lay.

The Bard. I. 2, Line 14.

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes;
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart. 6

The Bard. I. 3, Line 12.

    Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
  The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.
Give ample room and verge enough 7
  The characters of hell to trace.

The Bard. II. 1, Line 1.

    Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows;
  While proudly riding o’er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
  Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,
That hush’d in grim repose expects his evening prey.

The Bard. II. 2, Line 9.

Ye towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed.

The Bard. II. 3, Line 11.

Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!

The Bard. III. 1, Line 11.

And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.

The Bard. III. 3, Line 3.

Comus and his midnight crew.

Ode for Music. Line 2.

While bright-eyed Science watches round.

Ode for Music. Chorus. Line 3.

The still small voice of gratitude.

Ode for Music. V. Line 8.

Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darken’d air.

The Fatal Sisters. Line 3.

    The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
  The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, 8
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
  And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 1.

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 4.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 5.

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 8.

    The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
  And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
  The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 9.

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 10.

    Can storied urn, or animated bust,
  Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
  Or flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 11.

Hands that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 12.

    But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
  Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll; 9
Chill penury repress’d their noble rage,
  And froze the genial current of the soul.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 13.

    Full many a gem of purest ray serene
  The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
  And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 10

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 14.

    Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
  The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
  Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 15.

    The applause of list’ning senates to command,
  The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
  And read their history in a nation’s eyes.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 16.

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 17.

    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. 11

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 19.

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 20.

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 21.

    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?

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 22.

E’en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires. 12

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 23.

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 25.

    One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,
  Along the heath, and near his fav’rite tree:
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
  Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 28.

    Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
  A youth to fortune and to fame unknown:
Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,
  And Melancholy mark’d him for her own. 13

The Epitaph.

    Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
  Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to mis’ry (all he had) a tear,
  He gained from Heav’n (’t was all he wish’d) a friend.

The Epitaph.

    No further seek his merits to disclose,
  Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
  The bosom of his Father and his God.

The Epitaph.

And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

Sonnet. On the Death of Mr. West.

Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

A Long Story.

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of woe.

Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 45.

The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.

Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 53.

And hie him home, at evening’s close,
To sweet repast and calm repose.

Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 87.

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.

Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 93.

The social smile, the sympathetic tear.

Education and Government.

When love could teach a monarch to be wise,
And gospel-light first dawn’d from Bullen’s eyes. 14

Education and Government.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune.

On his own Character.

Now as the Paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon.

To Mr. West. Letter iv. Third Series.

Note 1.
See Davenant, Quotation 2.

He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.—Ecclesiastes i. 18. [back]

Note 2.
The light of love.—Lord Byron: Bride of Abydos, canto i. stanza 6. [back]

Note 3.
Unconquerable mind.—William Wordsworth: To Toussaint L’Ouverture. [back]

Note 4.
See Cowley, Quotation 19. [back]

Note 5.
See Cowley, Quotation 12. Milton, Quotation 21. [back]

Note 6.
See Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, Quotation 21. Otway, Quotation 2. [back]

Note 7.
See Dryden, Quotation 103. [back]

Note 8.
The first edition reads,—
“The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea.” [back]

Note 9.
See Sir Thomas Browne, Quotation 2. [back]

Note 10.
See Young, Quotation 66.

Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.—Charles Churchill: Gotham, book ii. line 20. [back]

Note 11.
Usually quoted “even tenor of their way.” [back]

Note 12.
See Chaucer, Quotation 25. [back]

Note 13.
See Walton, Quotation 22. [back]

Note 14.
This was intended to be introduced in the “Alliance of Education and Government.”—Mason’s edition of Gray, vol. iii. p. 114. [back]

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