Marmion (ed. Henry Morley) | Page 5

shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;

The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasped the
victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest
flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine,
Where glory
weeps o'er Nelson's shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,

That shrouds, O Pitt, thy hallowed tomb!
Deep graved in every British heart,
Oh never let those names depart!

Say to your sons--Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite
wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless
course was given.
Where'er his country's foes were found,
Was
heard the fated thunder's sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,

Rolled, blazed, destroyed--and was no more.
Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go
forth,
And launched that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia,
Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britain's weal
was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain's
sins, an early grave!
His worth, who, in his mightiest hour,
A
bauble held the pride of power,
Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf,

And served his Albion for herself;
Who, when the frantic crowd
amain
Strained at subjection's bursting rein,
O'er their wild mood
full conquest gained,
The pride he would not crush restrained,

Showed their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
And brought the freeman's
arm to aid the freeman's laws.
Hadst thou but lived, though stripped of power,

A watchman on the
lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud
or danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots
had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy
strength had propped the tottering throne:
Now is the stately column

broke,
The beacon-light is quenched in smoke,
The trumpet's silver
sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
Oh think, how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claimed
his prey,
With Palinure's unaltered mood,
Firm at his dangerous
post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repelled,
With dying hand
the rudder held,
Till in his fall, with fateful sway,
The steerage of
the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britain's thousand plains
One
unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around

The bloody tocsin's maddening sound,
But still, upon the hallowed
day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil
peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear -
He who
preserved them, Pitt, lies here!
Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;

Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.
For
talents mourn, untimely lost
When best employed, and wanted most;

Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play,
not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate,
resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy's glow -
They sleep
with him who sleeps below:
And if thou mourn'st they could not save

From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought
suppressed,
And sacred be the last long rest.
HERE, where the end
of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff
the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and
sung;
HERE, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of
holy song,

As if some angel spoke again,
"All peace on earth,
goodwill to men;"
If ever from an English heart,
Oh, HERE let
prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record that Fox a
Briton died!
When Europe crouched to France's yoke,
And Austria
bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian's purpose brave
Was
bartered by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonour's peace he spurned,

The sullied olive-branch returned,
Stood for his country's glory fast,


And nailed her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness,
gave
A portion in this honoured grave,
And ne'er held marble in its
trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust.
With more than mortal powers endowed,
How high they soared
above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by
dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook
realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,

Looked up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were
known
The names of Pitt and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no
wizard grave
E'er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could
drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky,
These
spells are spent, and, spent with these,
The wine of life is on the lees.

Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombed beneath the
stone,
Where--taming thought to human pride! -
The mighty chiefs
sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to
his rival's bier;
O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's
shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry -
"Here let
their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom,

Whom Fate made brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living
men,
Where wilt thou find their like again?"
Rest, ardent spirits! till the cries
Of dying Nature bid you rise;
Not
even your Britain's groans can pierce
The leaden silence of your
hearse;
Then, oh, how impotent and vain
This grateful tributary
strain!
Though not unmarked, from northern clime,

Ye heard the
Border minstrel's rhyme
His Gothic harp has o'er you rung;
The
bard you deigned to praise, your deathless names has sung.
Stay yet, illusion,