| |
| WHERE thick embowering shades, and clustering trees, | |
| Form soft recess, and shed poetic ease; | |
| Inarching boughs embrown the silent way, | |
| Fan breezy cool, and half exclude the day: | |
| A moss-clad rock here spread its bulky base, | 5 |
| Where the lithe ivy winds its close embrace; | |
| Beneath its slope—grey parent of the wood, | |
| A mouldering oak, grotesque and naked, stood; | |
| From its chafed root, a gurgling rivulet strays, | |
| And through the forest worms its sparkling maze: | 10 |
| Here his sluiced eyes, the pensive Pollio led, | |
| And lo his anguish utter’d, “George is dead.” | |
| |
| The swift wing’d breeze, excursive, wafts the sound, | |
| The cloud-topp’d forest nodded to the ground; | |
| The bellying clouds, with sable skirts advance, | 15 |
| And a dun horror shrouds the blue expanse; | |
| Slow swells the blast, the transient gusts arise, | |
| And grumbling thunders roll along the skies; | |
| The storm collects, in dusky clouds array’d, | |
| And brooding tempest frowns the deepest shade. | 20 |
| Involved in glooms, reclined upon the oak, | |
| In faltering accents, Pollio sobb’d and spoke. | |
| |
| “Lower on, ye sables, shed a tenfold gloom! | |
| George is deceased, and earth is but his tomb; | |
| The heavens were deaf, when Albion pour’d her cries | 25 |
| Ah fruitless anguish! ah relentless skies! | |
| War on, ye elements, ye tempests sweep | |
| The heaving bosom of the hoary deep; | |
| Ye trembling forests hide your faded green, | |
| May darksome horrors wrap the saddening scene; | 30 |
| Ye verdant walks a sicklier face shall wear, | |
| No flowers, to breathe soft incense through the air; | |
| Their savory banquets shall the flocks refrain, | |
| Nor crop the velvet of the pasturing plain; | |
| No fostering showers from hence refresh the lawn, | 35 |
| No pearly blessings cheer the parching dawn; | |
| The widow’d groves lost foliage shall deplore, | |
| And balmy zephyrs gather sweets no more: | |
| Thy George, O Albion! Heaven declines to spare, | |
| Bestow’d too long to prevalence of prayer; | 40 |
| Albion! thy parent dies!—as bless’d a mind, | |
| As heaven could furnish to exalt mankind; | |
| Religion, mercy, peace, his steps attend, | |
| And numerous virtues all their lustres lend; | |
| His guide was truth, benevolence his road, | 45 |
| His life, one effort of redundant good; | |
| No sword of violence protects a crime, | |
| Stains the clear page, or dims the golden time; | |
| No vice illustrious stalk’d behind the king, | |
| No shelter’d folly fledged beneath his wing; | 50 |
| No ravenous grasp, no lawless lust of power, | |
| Sullies his life, or stains a single hour; | |
| So kindly just, the parent monarch sighs, | |
| And greatly pities, while the laws chastise: | |
| When Albion’s safety would, how swift to save? | 55 |
| (A deed for gods) he pitied and forgave: | |
| Large as his heart, the blessings he design’d; | |
| His godlike bounty deluged all mankind: | |
| Here he restrain’d the Indian’s thirst of gore, | |
| And bid the murderous tomax drink no more; | 60 |
| Crush’d faithless Gallia, with her savage train, | |
| Who foster factions, to disturb his reign; | |
| Stretch’d through these haunts the blessings of his sway, | |
| And pour’d on pagan darkness, beamy day; | |
| ’T is from his hand this tide of plenty flows, | 65 |
| Thence learning buds, the infant of repose; | |
| ’T is he, whose wisdom crown’d the happiest reign, | |
| When patriots only, equal honors gain; | |
| Where all distinction was to vice denied, | |
| And patriot virtue spread its influence wide: | 70 |
| No sons but virtue’s, shone among the great, | |
| Nor less than Pitt, the pilot of the state. | |
| Nor civil virtues were his only claim, | |
| His early prowess won a martial fame: | |
| The victor wreath in dreadful fields he twined, | 75 |
| And valor throned him monarch of mankind; | |
| Germania’s realms his matchless courage boast, | |
| And clustering glories in his name are lost. | |
| Long was the blessing spared to Albion’s cries, | |
| Loved by his realms, and ripening for the skies; | 80 |
| In his full orb of majesty complete, | |
| He quits his earthly for a heavenly seat: | |
| Death, and death only, to such kings imparts | |
| A kingdom equal to their great deserts.” | |
| |
| Here the full tide of grief his song suppress’d, | 85 |
| And sighs and tears, instructive, spoke the rest. | |
| Amid the instant wreck, the laboring sigh, | |
| What glorious form commands the weeping eye? | |
| Pierced with a kingdom’s woes, she leads the tear, | |
| The infections drop our lids are proud to wear; | 90 |
| ’T is Albion’s guardian! see, her glossy plume | |
| Darts a keen radiance through the withering gloom! | |
| Not Cynthia’s beams with such effulgence flow, | |
| When her full disk gives all its broad below: | |
| High o’er the silver-skirted main she rose, | 95 |
| And o’er a world in anguish smiled repose: | |
| She waves her hand, and points to Britain’s throne, | |
| “George still survives, O Albion! all thy own: | |
| From deep despair, redemption he commands, | |
| And guides the sceptre with instructed hands.” | 100 |
| |
| New flush’d with life, the blooming forests rise, | |
| Shine with fresh green, and climb to taller skies; | |
| The warbling wantons through the dusky grove, | |
| Sweetly conspiring pour a waste of love; | |
| Perfumes from every breathing flower exhale, | 105 |
| And balmy incense loads the fragrant gale; | |
| Their savory banquet lowing herds regain, | |
| Ranged on the velvet of the pasturing plain: | |
| On the bless’d theme the bard indulged him long, | |
| Then thus his raptures he attuned to song: | 110 |
| “Thrice bless’d Britannia! heaven’s peculiar care! | |
| Oft rescued in the moment of despair; | |
| Pangs but arrive e’er blessings swift pursue, | |
| We scarcely tremble, e’er we triumph too. | |
| How scourged! how lost! let Albion’s groans inform; | 115 |
| This western empire scarce survived the storm: | |
| Our ague fears, and enervating woe, | |
| Edged the keen vengeance of the insulting foe; | |
| But—snatch’d from fate, when to its stroke resign’d— | |
| Who dares despair? for heaven and George were kind. | 120 |
| Then whilst with Albion we our joys contest, | |
| And pour our raptures in the monarch’s breast; | |
| The distant blessing honor and approve, | |
| With secret avarice dwell upon his love; | |
| To listening skies our laboring breasts unload, | 125 |
| And wrest new blessings from his conscious God; | |
| He dies. At this our bursting bosoms rave, | |
| And pain’d remembrance envied George his grave. | |
| |
| “What kindly God presides? the tumults cease, | |
| This hour all tempest, and the next all peace; | 130 |
| We smile, bless’d heaven! a George upon the throne, | |
| Another George, O Albion! all thy own; | |
| From deep despair a nation to redeem, | |
| And check our sorrows in their midway stream: | |
| He sways the sceptre, takes the glorious charge; | 135 |
| Unbounded goodness now shall lord at large: | |
| His virtues blazon’d wide as fame can wing, | |
| And proud Britannia glories in her king. | |
| Blush, grandeur! blush, in all thy purple pride, | |
| True greatness is to goodness close allied: | 140 |
| The worthy heart will ever claim esteem; | |
| O prince, thy virtue is thy brightest gem: | |
| Food for applause to distant realms dispense, | |
| Beyond the reach of poor magnificence; | |
| Blessings are tongued, and ever on the wing— | 145 |
| A wondering world’s a circle for a king. | |
| Joy to the realms where slavery was design’d, | |
| A Brunswick reigns, the guardian of mankind. | |
| While gay-eyed conquest rears his banners high, | |
| A flaming meteor in the Gallic sky. | 150 |
| He bids his bolted thunders cease their roar; | |
| And offers peace to Gallia’s faithless shore. | |
| Bless’d prince! whose unexampled goodness charms, | |
| Thy people’s blessings be thy brightest arms: | |
| The base of empire is the king’s desert, | 155 |
| And merit is the monarch of the heart. | |
| Nor hostile worlds shall favorite George dethrone; | |
| Each Briton’s breast’s a barrier to his own. | |
| May one clear calm attend thee to thy close, | |
| One lengthen’d sunshine of complete repose: | 160 |
| Correct our crimes, and beam that christian mind | |
| O’er the wide wreck of dissolute mankind; | |
| To calm brow’d peace, the maddening world restore, | |
| Or lash the demon thirsting still for gore; | |
| Till nature’s utmost bound thy arms restrain, | 165 |
| And prostrate tyrants bite the British chain. | |
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