WHERE is Timarchus gone? His father's hands were round him, And when he breathed his life away, The joy of youth had crowned him. Old man! thou wilt not forget Thy lost one, when thine eye Gazeth on the glowing cheek Of hope and piety. ON THE LOSS OF THE "ROYAL GEORGE." TOLL for the brave The brave that are no more! All sunk beneath the wave, Fast by their native shore! Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried, Had made the vessel heel, And laid her on her side. A land breeze shook the shrouds, LOUD is the Vale! the voice is up With which she speaks when storms are gone, A mighty unison of streams! Loud is the Vale;-this inland Depth Sad was I, even to pain deprest, And many thousands now are sad Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, Whole in himself, a common good. Mourn for the man of amplest influ ence, Yet clearest of ambitious crime, O voice from which their omens all men drew, O iron nerve to true occasion true, O fallen at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew! Such was he whom we deplore. The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. The great World-victor's victor will be seen no more. V. All is over and done: Let the bell be tolled. And a reverent people behold Dark in its funeral fold. Let the bell be tolled: And a deeper knell in the heart be knolled; And the sound of the sorrowing anthem rolled Thro' the dome of the golden cross; And the volleying cannon thunder his loss; He knew their voices of old. Bellowing victory, bellowing doom: When he with those deep voices wrought, Guarding realms and kings from shame; With those deep voices our dead captain taught The tyrant, and asserts his claim Preserve a broad approach of fame, Now, to the roll of muffled drums, Was great by land as thou by sea; Followed up in valley and glen And barking for the thrones of kings; crown On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down; A day of onsets of despair! Last, the Prussian trumpet blew; So great a soldier taught us there, What long-enduring hearts could do In that world-earthquake, Waterloo! Mighty Seaman, tender and true, And pure as he from taint of craven guile, O saviour of the silver-coasted isle, O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, If aught of things that here befall Touch a spirit among things divine, If love of country move thee there at all, Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine! And thro' the centuries let a people's voice Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears: The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; Speak no more of his renown, THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA. NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corpse to the rampart we hurried; We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow! Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him; But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him. But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock tolled the hour for retiring: And we heard the distant random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory. |