l clay
Thy Hector, wrapped in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh nor see thee weep.'"

Next in pathos is the _mournful_ elegy; of which none can surpass Gray's
elegy:--

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Alike await the inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

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

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

Let not ambition mock our useful toil,
Our homely joys and destiny obscure,
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor:

Their names, their years spelt by the untaught Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply,
And many a holy text around she strews,
To teach the rustic moralist to die."

Nursery rhymes, old ballads, odes, sonnets, epigrams, travesties,
fables, satires, and eclogues, and, most of all, songs, provide daily
pleasure for us from our cradle to the grave. Every language has its
nursery rhymes, which are a sort of Delphian lot, sung in enigma from
'King Pittacus of Mytilene' and 'Le bon Roi Dagobert,' to the lullaby of
'Four-and-twenty Blackbirds.' There is as much sarcasm in nursery rhymes
as there is of pride and boast in the songs of bards at the feast of
heroes, and as there is of humble confession in the funeral psalm. Song
tends alike to evaporate exuberant spirits, and to soothe the soul in an
affliction--as Desdemona informs us so sweetly in her misery:--

"My mother had a maid called Barbara;
She was in love: and he she loved proved mad,
And did forsake her. She had a song of willow,
An old thing 'twas; but it expressed her fortune,
And she died singing it. That song to-night
Will not go from my mind: I have much to do,
But to go hang my head all of one side,
And sing it like poor Barbara."

Ophelia chanted as she floated down the brook, Arion tamed the flood,
and Orpheus the trees and rocks. It is a marvellous power which soothes
alike the babe in the arms and the hero at the feast, the lover and the
forsaken maiden, which le