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.

"And here," comments Mason, "the Poem was originally intended to
conclude, before the happy idea of the hoary-headed Swain, &c.
suggested itself to him." To reconstitute the poem with this original
ending gives an interesting structure. The first three quatrains evoke
the fall of darkness; four stanzas follow presenting the rude
forefathers in their narrow graves; eleven quatrains follow in
reproach of Ambition, Grandeur, Pride, et al., for failure to realize
the high merit of humility. Then after line 72 of the final version
would come these four rejected stanzas, continuing the reproach of
"the thoughtless world," and turning all too briefly to one who could
"their artless tale relate," and to the calm that then breathes around
tumultuous passion and speaks of eternal peace--and "the silent tenor
of thy doom."

That would give a simpler structure; and one may argue whether turning
back from the thoughtless world to praise again the "cool sequester'd
vale of life" and then appending "the happy idea of the hoary-headed
swain, &c." does really improve the poem structurally. Its method is,
however, more acceptable in that now the reflections are imbedded in
"drama" (or at least in narrative),