Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude
by Thomas Gray

English poet. His best known work is Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard (written 1750, published 1751) where Gray celebrates the life of the "common man" in a way that anticipates Wordsworth. His first published work was Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1747), followed by Ode on the Spring and Sonnet on the Death of West. He wrote two Pindaric Odes The Progress of Poetry (1754) and The Bard (1757). He had an interest in Old Norse and Welsh poetry which produced The Fatal Sisters and The Descent of Odin (1768), and some of his letters also remain.

Gray had small output but was a dominant poet of the mid-eighteenth century pre-romantic era.

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Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude
by Thomas Gray

Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She wooes the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o'er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.

New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the skylark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy;
And, lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.

Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The herd stood drooping by:
Their raptures now that wildly flow
No yesterday nor morrow know;
'Tis Man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.

Smiles on past Misfortune's brow
Soft Reflection's hand can trace,
And o'er the cheek of Sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lour
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy Pleasure leads
See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads
Approaching Comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.

See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.

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Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude by Thomas Gray