Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay. 18001859657. A Jacobite’s Epitaph
TO my true king I offer’d free from stain | |
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain. | |
For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away, | |
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they. | |
For him I languish’d in a foreign clime, | 5 |
Gray-hair’d with sorrow in my manhood’s prime; | |
Heard on Lavernia Scargill’s whispering trees, | |
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees; | |
Beheld each night my home in fever’d sleep, | |
Each morning started from the dream to weep; | 10 |
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave | |
The resting-place I ask’d, an early grave. | |
O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone, | |
From that proud country which was once mine own, | |
By those white cliffs I never more must see, | 15 |
By that dear language which I spake like thee, | |
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear | |
O’er English dust. A broken heart lies here. |