In the 21st stanza, "fame and _epitaph_," etc.
In the 23d stanza, the last line reads,
"And buried ashes glow with social fires."
"Social" subsequently became "wonted," and other changes were made
(see p. 74, foot-note) before the line took its present form.
The 24th stanza reads,
"If chance that e'er some pensive Spirit more,
By sympathetic musings here delay'd,
With vain, though kind inquiry shall explore
Thy once-lov'd haunt, this long-deserted shade."[6]
[Footnote 6: Mitford (Eton ed.) gives "sympathizing" in the second
line, and for the last,
"Thy ever loved haunt--this long deserted shade."
The latter is obviously wrong (Gray was incapable of such metre), and
the former is probably wrong also.]
The last line of the 25th stanza reads,
"On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn."
Then comes the following stanza, afterwards omitted:
"Him have we seen the greenwood side along,
While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done,
Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun."[7]
Mason remarked: "I rather wonder that he rejected this stanza, as it
not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us
peculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account
of his whole day; whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we have
only his morning walk, and his noontide repose."
[Footnote 7: Here also we follow Mason; the _North American Review_
reads "our _labours_ done."]
The first line of the 27th stanza reads,
"With gestures quaint, now smiling as in scorn."
After the 29th stanza, and before the Epitaph, the MS. contains the
following omitted stanza:
"There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are frequent violets found;
The robin loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."
This--with two or three verbal changes only[8]--was inserted in all
the editions up to 1753, when it was dropped. The omission was not
made from any objection to the stanza in itself, but simply because
it was too long a parenthesis in this place; on the principle which
he states in a letter to Dr. Beattie: "As to description, I have
always thought that it made the most graceful ornament of poetry, but
never ought to make the subject." The part was sacrificed for the
good of the whole. Mason very justly remarked that "the lines,
however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demand
preservation."
[Footnote 8: See next page. The writer in the _North American Review_
is our only authority for the stanza as given above. He appears to
have had the photographic reproduction of the Wrightson MS., but we
cannot vouch for the accuracy of his transcripts from it.]