William Collins Quotes

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country’s wishes blest!

Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almost lost in Art.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

Love of peace, and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.

Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Beloved till life can charm no more,
And mourn'd till Pity’s self be dead.

In numbers warmly pure and sweetly strong.

With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired,
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Poured thro' the mellow horn her pensive soul.

In yonder Grave a Druid lies
Where slowly winds the Stealing Wave!
The Year's best Sweets shall duteous rise
To deck its Poet's sylvan Grave!

But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide
No sedge-crown'd sister now attend,
Now waft me from the green hill's side
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung.

Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!

Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell:
'T is virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat,
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.