Oliver Goldsmith

As aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; But crush'd or trodden to the ground, Diffuse their balmy sweets around.

The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n Nature warm, The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.

The best-humour'd man, with the worst-humour'd Muse.

Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes.

The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door; The chest, contriv'd a double debt to pay,- A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.

Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.

Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.

In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill, For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around; And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.