Nelson, Pitt, Fox
By Walter Scott (Sir)
To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh, my Countrys wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;
The mind that thought for Britains weal,
The hand that graspd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine
Where glory weeps oer Nelsons shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom
That shrouds, O Pitt, thy hallowd tomb!
Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart!
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.
Whereer his countrys foes were found
Was heard the fated thunders sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Rolld, blazed, destroyd and was no more.
Nor mourn ye less his perishd worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,
And launchd that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprise,
For Britains weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britains sins, an early grave!
His worth, who in his mightiest hour
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spurnd at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself;
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Straind at subjections bursting rein,
Oer their wild mood full conquest gaind,
The pride he would not crush, restraind,
Showd their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
And brought the freemans arm to aid the freemans laws.
Hadst thou but lived, though strippd of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had proppd the tottering throne.
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quenchd in smoke,
The trumpets silver voice is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
O think, how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claimd his prey,
With Palinures unalterd mood
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repelld,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till in his fall with fateful sway
The steerage of the realm gave way.
Then, while on Britains thousand plains
One polluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells neer sent around
The bloody tocsins maddening sound,
But still upon the hallowd 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!
Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy Requiescat dumb
Lest it be said oer Foxs tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employd, 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;
And feelings keen, and fancys glow,
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mournst they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppressd,
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;
Here, where the fretted vaults 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,
O, here let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouchd to Frances yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russians purpose brave
Was barterd by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonours peace he spurnd,
The sullied olive-branch returnd,
Stood for his countrys glory fast,
And naild her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honourd grave;
And neer held marble in its trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust.
With more than mortal powers endowd,
How high they soard above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Lookd up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of Pitt and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
Eer framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky.
These spells are spent, and, spent with these,
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombd beneath the stone,
Where, taming thought to human pride!
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Foxs grave the tear,
Twill trickle to his rivals bier;
Oer Pitts the mournful requiem sound,
And Foxs shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,
Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom
Whom fate made Brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like agen?