Of The Death Of The Right Hon. ***

Ye Muses, pour the pitying tear
For Pollio snatch'd away;
O! had he liv'd another year!
'He had not died to-day'.

O! were he born to bless mankind,
In virtuous times of yore,
Heroes themselves had fallen behind!
'Whene'er he went before'.

How sad the groves and plains appear,
And sympathetic sheep;
Even pitying hills would drop a tear!
'If hills could learn to weep'.

His bounty in exalted strain
Each bard might well display;
Since none implor'd relief in vain!
'That went reliev'd away'.

And hark! I hear the tuneful throng
His obsequies forbid,
He still shall live, shall live as long!
'As ever dead man did'.

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish novelist, playwright, and poet, best known for his novel 'The Vicar of Wakefield' (1766), his pastoral poem 'The Deserted Village' (1770), and his play 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1773). He was a versatile writer with works ranging from prose to poetry to drama and was a central figure in the literary circle known as the 'Club' alongside Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke. His writing often depicted rural life and he became an important part of 18th-century English literature.

Oliver Goldsmith

Translation

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

Elegy On The Death Of A Mad Dog

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

Epilogue Intended To Have Been Spoken For 'She Stoops To Conquer'

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

Song Intended To Have Been Sung In 'She Stoops To Conquer'

Oliver Goldsmith, Simple Poetry

English

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Address To The Scholars Of The Village School

I come, ye little noisy Crew,
Not long your pastime to prevent;
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Elegiac Musings - In The Grounds Of Coleorton Hall, The Seat Of The Late Sir G. H. Beaumont, Bart.

With copious eulogy in prose or rhyme
Graven on the tomb we struggle against Time,
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Threnodia Augustalis:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF HER LATE ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES.

OVERTURE A SOLEMN DIRGE. AIR TRIO.

Arise, ye sons of worth, arise,
And waken every note of woe;
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below!

CHORUS.
When truth and virtue, etc.

MAN SPEAKER.
The praise attending pomp and power,
The incense given to kings,
Are but the trappings of an hour
Mere transitory things!
The base bestow them: but the good agree
To spurn the venal gifts as flattery.
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When wealth and rank and noble blood,
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Oliver Goldsmith

Epistle To Robert Earl Of Oxford And Earl Mortimer.

Such were the notes thy once-loved Poet sung,
Till Death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh just beheld and lost! admired and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!
Blest in each science, blest in every strain!
Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear--in vain!

For him, thou oft hast bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For Swift and him, despised the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dext'rous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleased to 'scape from Flattery to Wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear,)
Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days,
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Elegiac Stanzas - Addressed To Sir G. H. B. Upon The Death Of His Sister-In-Law

O for a dirge! But why complain?
Ask rather a triumphal strain
When Fermor's race is run;
A garland of immortal boughs
To twine around the Christian's brows,
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No tears of passionate regret
Shall stain this votive lay;
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Sad doom, at Sorrow's shrine to kneel,
For ever covetous to feel,
And impotent to bear!
Such once was hers, to think and think
On severed love, and only sink
From anguish to despair!

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Faith had refined; and to her heart
A peaceful cradle given:
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Within a breeze-fanned rose's breas...

William Wordsworth