From the big horror of War's hoarse alarms,
And the tremendous clang of clashing arms,
Descend, my Muse! a deeper scene to draw
(A scene will hold the listening world in awe)
Is my intent: Melpomene inspire,
While, with sad notes, I strike the trembling lyre!
And may my lines with easy motion flow,
Melt as they move, and fill each heart with woe:
Big with the sorrow it describes, my song,
In solemn pomp, majestic, move along.
O bear me to some awful silent glade,
Where cedars form an unremitting shade;
Where never track of human feet was known;
Where never cheerful light of Phoebus shone;
Where chirping linnets warble tales of love,
And hoarser winds howl murmuring through the grove;
Where some unhappy wretch aye mourns his doom,
Deep melancholy wandering through the gloom;
Where solitude and meditation roam,
And where no dawning glimpse of hope can come!
Place me in such an unfrequented shade,
To speak to none but with the mighty dead;
To assist the pouring rains with brimful eyes,
And aid hoarse howling Boreas with my sighs.
When Winter's horrors left Britannia's isle,
And Spring in blooming vendure 'gan to smile;
When rills, unbound, began to purl along,
And warbling larks renew'd the vernal song;
When sprouting roses, deck'd in crimson dye,
Began to bloom, ...
Hard fate! then, noble Frederic, didst thou die:
Doom'd by inexorable fate's decree,
The approaching summer ne'er on earth to see:
In thy parch'd vitals burning fevers rage,
Whose flame the virtue of no herbs assuage;
No cooling medicine can its heat allay,
Relentless destiny cries, 'No delay!'
Ye powers! and must a prince so noble die?
(Whose equal breathes not under the ambient sky)
Ah! must he die, then, in youth's full-blown prime,
Cut by the scythe of all-devouring Time?
Yes, fate has doom'd! his soul now leaves its weight,
And all are under the decree of fate;
The irrevocable doom of destiny
Pronounced, 'All mortals must submissive die.'
The princes wait around with weeping eyes,
And the dome echoes all with piercing cries:
With doleful noise the matrons scream around,
With female shrieks the vaulted roofs rebound:
A dismal noise! Now one promiscuous roar
Cries, 'Ah! the noble Frederic is no more!'
The chief reluctant yields his latest breath;
His eye-lids settle in the shades of death;
Dark sable shades present before each eye,
And the deep vast abyss, Eternity!
Through perpetuity's expanse he springs;
And o'er the vast profound he shoots on wings;
The soul to distant regions steers her flight,
And sails incumbent on inferior night:
With vast celerity she shoots away,
And meets the regions of eternal day,
To shine for ever in the heavenly birth,
And leave the body here to rot on earth.
The melancholy patriots round it wait,
And mourn the royal hero's timeless fate.
Disconsolate they move, a mournful band!
In solemn pomp they march along the strand:
The noble chief, interr'd in youthful bloom,
Lies in the dreary regions of the tomb.
Adown Augusta's pallid visage flow
The living pearls with unaffected woe:
Disconsolate, hapless, see pale Britain mourn,
Abandon'd isle! forsaken and forlorn
With desperate hands her bleeding breast she beats;
While o'er her, frowning, grim destruction threats.
She mourns with heart-felt grief, she rends her hair,
And fills with piercing cries the echoing air.
Well mayst thou mourn thy patriot's timeless end,
Thy Muse's patron, and thy merchant's friend!
What heart shall pity thy full-flowing grief?
What hand now deign to give thy poor relief?
To encourage arts, whose bounty now shall flow,
And learned science to promote, bestow?
Who now protect thee from the hostile frown,
And to the injured just return his own?
From usury and oppression who shall guard
The helpless, and the threatening ruin ward?
Alas! the truly noble Briton's gone,
And left us here in ceaseless woe to moan!
Impending desolation hangs around,
And ruin hovers o'er the trembling ground:
The blooming spring droops her enamell'd head,
Her glories wither, and her flowers all fade:
The sprouting leaves already drop away;
Languish the living herbs with pale decay:
The bowing trees, see! o'er the blasted heath,
Depending, bend beneath the weight of death:
Wrapp'd in the expansive gloom, the lightnings play,
Hoarse thunder mutters through the aërial way:
All Nature feels the pangs, the storms renew,
And sprouts, with fatal haste, the baleful yew.
Some power avert the threatening horrid weight,
And, godlike, prop Britannia's sinking state!
Minerva, hover o'er young George's soul;
May sacred wisdom all his deeds control!
Exalted grandeur in each action shine,
His conduct all declare the youth divine!
Methinks I see him shine a glorious star,
Gentle in peace, but terrible in war!
Methinks each region does his praise resound,
And nations tremble at his name around!
His fame, through every distant kingdom rung,
Proclaims him of the race from whence he sprung:
So sable smoke in volumes curls on high;
Heaps roll on heaps, and blacken all the sky:
Already so, his fame, methinks, is hurl'd
Around the admiring, venerating world.
So the benighted wanderer, on his way,
Laments the absence of all-cheering day;
Far distant from his friends and native home,
And not one glimpse does glimmer through the gloom:
In thought he breathes, each sigh his latest breath,
Present, each meditation, pits of death:
Irregular, wild chimeras fill his soul,
And death, and dying, every step control.
Till from the east there breaks a purple gleam,
His fears then vanish as a fleeting dream:
Hid in a cloud the sun first shoots his ray,
Then breaks effulgent on the illumined day;
We see no spot then in the flaming rays,
Confused and lost within the excessive blaze.