Note C — SONG OF THE EXILE.
Reading edition
"Pale and weak with recent illness, Wolfe reclined among his officers, and, in a low tone, blending with the rippling of the river, recited several stanzas of the recent poem, Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.' Perhaps the shadow of his approaching fate stole upon his mind, as in mournful cadence he whispered the strangely pathetic words:
'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave, Alike await the inexorable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'
"With a prescience of the hollowness of military renown, he exclaimed, 'I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec to-morrow.'"—Withrow's History of Canada, p. 246.