Quote

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?

Thomas Gray

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Thomas Gray
Age: 54 †
Born: 1716
Born: December 26
Died: 1771
Died: July 30
Literary Critic
Poet
London
England
Cold
Fleeting
Storied
Call
Honour
Soothe
Voice
Dull
Mansion
Death
Breath
Bust
Back
Breaths
Provoke
Dust
Mansions
Ears
Provoking
Silent
Animated

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In buskined measures move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
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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.
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Not all that tempts your wandering eyes And heedless hearts, is lawful prize Nor all that glisters gold.
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Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
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To contemplation's sober eye, Such is the race of man And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began, Alike the busy and the gay, But flutter through life's little day.
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Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.
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Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think.
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Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions date descry.
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I shall be but a shrimp of an author.
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The different steps and degrees of education may be compared to the artificer's operations upon marble it is one thing to dig it out of the quarry, and another to square it, to give it gloss and lustre, call forth every beautiful spot and vein, shape it into a column, or animate it into a statue.
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And moody madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.
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The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
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The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
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Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.
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And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.
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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?
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When love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel-light first dawn'd from Bullen's eyes.
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Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.
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The Attic warbler pours her throat, Responsive to the cuckoo's note, The untaught harmony of spring.
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One principal characteristic of vice in the present age is the contempt of fame.
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