Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Sir Walter Scott. 17711832548. Patriotism 2. Nelson, Pitt, Fox
TO mute and to material things | |
New life revolving summer brings; | |
The genial call dead Nature hears, | |
And in her glory reappears. | |
But oh, my Country’s wintry state | 5 |
What second spring shall renovate? | |
What powerful call shall bid arise | |
The buried warlike and the wise; | |
The mind that thought for Britain’s weal, | |
The hand that grasp’d the victor steel? | 10 |
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 | 15 |
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallow’d tomb! | |
Deep graved in every British heart, | |
O never let those names depart! | |
Say to your sons,—Lo, here his grave, | |
Who victor died on Gadite wave! | 20 |
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, | 25 |
Roll’d, blazed, destroy’d—and was no more. | |
Nor mourn ye less his perish’d worth, | |
Who bade the conqueror go forth, | |
And launch’d that thunderbolt of war | |
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar; | 30 |
Who, born to guide such high emprise, | |
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 | 35 |
A bauble held the pride of power, | |
Spurn’d at the sordid lust of pelf, | |
And served his Albion for herself; | |
Who, when the frantic crowd amain | |
Strain’d at subjection’s bursting rein, | 40 |
O’er their wild mood full conquest gain’d, | |
The pride he would not crush, restrain’d, | |
Show’d their fierce zeal a worthier cause, | |
And brought the freeman’s arm to aid the freeman’s laws. | |
Hadst thou but lived, though stripp’d of power, | 45 |
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; | 50 |
As some proud column, though alone, | |
Thy strength had propp’d the tottering throne. | |
Now is the stately column broke, | |
The beacon-light is quench’d in smoke, | |
The trumpet’s silver voice is still, | 55 |
The warder silent on the hill! | |
O think, how to his latest day, | |
When Death, just hovering, claim’d his prey, | |
With Palinure’s unalter’d mood | |
Firm at his dangerous post he stood; | 60 |
Each call for needful rest repell’d, | |
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 | 65 |
One polluted church remains, | |
Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent around | |
The bloody tocsin’s maddening sound, | |
But still upon the hallow’d day | |
Convoke the swains to praise and pray; | 70 |
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; | 75 |
Nor be thy Requiescat dumb | |
Lest it be said o’er Fox’s tomb. | |
For talents mourn, untimely lost, | |
When best employ’d, and wanted most; | |
Mourn genius high, and lore profound, | 80 |
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: | 85 |
And, if thou mourn’st they could not save | |
From error him who owns this grave, | |
Be every harsher thought suppress’d, | |
And sacred be the last long rest. | |
Here, where the end of earthly things | 90 |
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 vaults prolong | |
The distant notes of holy song, | 95 |
As if some angel spoke agen, | |
‘All peace on earth, good-will to men’; | |
If ever from an English heart, | |
O, here let prejudice depart, | |
And, partial feeling cast aside, | 100 |
Record that Fox a Briton died! | |
When Europe crouch’d to France’s yoke, | |
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, | |
And the firm Russian’s purpose brave | |
Was barter’d by a timorous slave— | 105 |
Even then dishonour’s peace he spurn’d, | |
The sullied olive-branch return’d, | |
Stood for his country’s glory fast, | |
And nail’d her colours to the mast! | |
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave | 110 |
A portion in this honour’d grave; | |
And ne’er held marble in its trust | |
Of two such wondrous men the dust. | |
With more than mortal powers endow’d, | |
How high they soar’d above the crowd! | 115 |
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, | 120 |
Look’d 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, | 125 |
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, | 130 |
For ever tomb’d 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; | 135 |
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 | 140 |
Whom fate made Brothers in the tomb; | |
But search the land of living men, | |
Where wilt thou find their like agen?’ |