Marmion

And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallow’d tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart!                            70
Say to your sons, – Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless course was given.
Where’er his country’s foes were found,                    75
Was heard the fated thunder’s sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Roll’d, blazed, destroyed, – and was no more.

Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,                            80
And launch’d that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britain’s weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,                            85
For Britain’s sins, an early grave!
His worth, who, in his mightiest hour,
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spum’d at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself;                          90
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Strain’d at subjection’s bursting rein,
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,                  95
And brought the freeman’s arm, to aid the freeman’s laws.

Had’st thou but lived, though stripp’d of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;                        100
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propp’d the tottering throne:
Now is the stately column broke,                          105
The beacon-light is quench’d in smoke,
The trumpet’s silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!

Oh, think, how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claim’d his prey,              110
With Palinure’s unalter’d mood,
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repell’d,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till, in his fall, with fateful sway,                      115
The steerage of the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britain’s thousand plains,
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent around
The bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,                      120
But still, upon the hallow’d day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,
He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here!                  125

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o’er Fox’s tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost,                          130
When best employ’d, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;                            135
And feelings keen, and fancy’s glow, -
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mourn’st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppress’d,                      140
And sacred be the last long rest.
Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;                  145
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke agen,
‘All peace on earth, good-will to men;’
If ever from an English heart,                            150
O, here let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record, that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouch’d to France’s yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,                      155
And the firm Russian’s purpose brave,
Was barter’d by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonour’s peace he spurn’d,
The sullied olive-branch return’d,
Stood for his country’s glory fast,                        160
And nail’d her colours to the mast!