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[Page 270]
ODE.
I.
1 LO! where the rosy-bosom'd hours,
2 Fair VENUS' train appear,
3 Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
4 And wake the purple year!
5 The ATTICK warbler pours her throat
6 Responsive to the cuckow's note,
7 The untaught harmony of spring:
8 While whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
9 Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
10 Their gather'd fragrance fling.
II.
[Page 271]11 Where-e'er the oak's thick branches stretch
12 A broader browner shade;
13 Where-e'er the rude and moss-green beech
14 O'er-canopies the glade;
15 Beside some water's rushy brink
16 With me the Muse shall sit and think
17 (At ease reclin'd in rustick state)
18 How vain the ardour of the crowd,
19 How low, how indigent the proud,
20 How little are the great!
III.
21 Still is the toiling hand of care:
22 The panting herds repose:
23 Yet hark, how through the peopled air
24 The busy murmur glows!
25 The insect youth are on the wing,
26 Eager to taste the honied spring,
27 And float amid the liquid noon:
28 Some lightly o'er the current skim,
29 Some shew their gayly-gilded trim
30 Quick-glancing to the sun.
IV.
31 To Contemplation's sober eye
32 Such is the race of man:
33 And they that creep, and they that fly,
34 Shall end where they began.
35 Alike the busy and the gay
36 But flutter thro' life's little day,
37 In fortune's varying colours dress'd:
38 Brush'd by the hand of rough mischance,
39 Or chill'd by age, their airy dance
40 They leave, in dust to rest.
V.
41 Methinks I hear in accents low
42 The sportive kind reply:
43 Poor moralist! and what art thou?
44 A solitary fly!
[Page 272]45 Thy joys no glittering female meets,
46 No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
47 No painted plumage to display:
48 On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
49 Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone —
50 We frolick, while 'tis May.
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About this text
Author: Thomas Gray
Themes:
nature
Genres:
ode
References:
DMI 22461
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Source edition
Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. II. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 270-272. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.002) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)
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Other versions of this work
Other works by Thomas Gray
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- The Death of Hoel From Aneurin, Monarch of the Bards, extracted from the Gododin ()
- THE DESCENT OF ODIN: AN ODE. (); The Descent of Odin. An Ode (From the Norse-Tongue,) in Bartholinus, de causis contemnendae mortis; Hafniae, 1689, Quarto. Upreis Odinn allda gautr, &c. ()
- An ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH YARD. (); Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ()
- [Epitaph on a Child] ()
- [Epitaph on Mrs Clerke] ()
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- THE FATAL SISTERS: AN ODE. (); The Fatal Sisters. An Ode (From the Norse-Tongue,) in the ORCADES of Thormodus Torfaeus; Hafniae, 1697, Folio: and also in Bartholinus. Vitt er orpit fyrir valfalli, &c. ()
- HYMN to ADVERSITY. (); Ode to Adversity ()
- [Hymn to Ignorance. A Fragment] ()
- Imitated from Propertius, Lib: 3: Eleg: 5: ()
- [Imitated] From Propertius. Lib: 2: Eleg: 1. ()
- [Impromptus] ()
- [Invitation to Mason] ()
- [Lines on Dr Robert Smith] ()
- Lines on the Accession of George III ()
- [Lines Spoken by the Ghost of John Dennis at the Devil Tavern] ()
- [Lines Written at Burnham] ()
- A Long Story ()
- ODE AT THE INSTALLATION OF HIS GRACE AUGUSTUS HENRY FITZROY, DUKE OF GRAFTON, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY. JULY 1, MDCCLXIX. (); Ode for Music ()
- An ODE On a distant Prospect of ETON COLLEGE. (); Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College ()
- ODE on the Death of a Favourite CAT, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes. (); Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes ()
- [Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude] ()
- ODE. (); The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode ()
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- On L[or]d H[olland']s Seat near M[argat]e, K[en]t ()
- [Parody on an Epitaph] ()
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- Song I ()
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- Sonnet [on the Death of Mr Richard West] ()
- Stanzas to Mr Bentley ()
- [Tophet] Inscription on a Portrait ()
- [Translation from Dante, Inferno Canto xxxiii 1-78] ()
- [Translation from Statius, Thebaid VI 646-88, 704-24] ()
- [Translation from Statius, Thebaid IX 319-26] ()
- [Translation] From Tasso [Gerusalemme Liberata] Canto 14, Stanza 32-9 ()
- THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN: A FRAGMENT. (); The Triumphs of Owen. A Fragment from Mr. Evans's Specimens of the Welch Poetry; London, 1764, Quarto. ()
- [Verse Fragments] ()
- William Shakespeare to Mrs Anne, Regular Servant to the Revd Mr Precentor of York ()