FOR A COLUMN AT TRUXILLO.
PIZARRO here was born; a greater name
The list of Glory boasts not.
Famine and hostile Elements, and Hosts
Embattled, fail'd to check him in his course,
Not to be wearied, not to be deterr'd,
Not to be overcome. A mighty realm
He over-ran, and with relentless arm
Slew or enslaved its unoffending sons,
And wealth, and power, and fame, were his rewards.
There is another world, beyond the Grave,
According to their deeds where men are judged.
O Reader! if thy daily bread be earn'd
By daily labour,.. yea, however low,
However painful be thy lot assign'd,
Thank thou, with deepest gratitude, the God
Who made thee, that thou art not such as he.
Bristol, 1796.
FOR THE CELL OF HONORIUS, AT THE CORK CONVENT, NEAR CINTRA.
HERE cavern'd like a beast Honorius pass'd
In self-affliction, solitude, and prayer,
Long years of penance. He had rooted out
All human feelings from his heart, and fled
With fear and loathing from all human joys.
Not thus in making known his will divine
Hath Christ enjoin'd. To aid the fatherless,
Comfort the sick, and be the poor man's friend,
And in the wounded heart pour gospel-balm;
These are the injunctions of his holy law,
Which whoso keeps shall have a joy on earth,
Calm, constant, still increasing, preluding
The eternal bliss of Heaven.
Stranger, the Anchorite's mistaken zeal!
He painfully his painful duties kept,
Sincere though erring: Stranger, do thou keep Thy better and thine easier rule as well.
FOR A MONUMENT AT TAUNTON,
THEY suffer'd here whom Jefferies doom'd to death
-In mockery of all justice, when the Judge
Unjust, subservient to a cruel King,
Perform'd his work of blood. They suffer'd here
The victims of that Judge, and of that King;
In mockery of all justice here they bled,
Unheard. But not unpitied, nor of God
Unseen, the innocent suffered; not unheard
The innocent blood cried vengeance; for at length
The indignant Nation in its power arose,
Resistless. Then that wicked Judge took flight,
Disguised in vain: . . not always is the Lord
Slow to revenge! A miserable man
He fell beneath the people's rage, and still
The children curse his memory. From the throne
The obdurate bigot who commission'd him,
Inhuman James, was driven. He lived to drag
Long years of frustrate hope, he lived to load
More blood upon his soul. Let tell the Boyne,
Let Londonderry tell his guilt and shame;
And that immortal day when on thy shores,
La Hogue, the purple ocean dash'd the dead!
FOR A TABLET AT PENSHURST.
ARE days of old familiar to thy mind,
O Reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour
Pass unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived
With high-born beauties and enamour'd chiefs,
Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy
Whose expectation touch'd the verge of pain,
Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore
Hath ever thrill'd thy bosom, thou wilt tread,
As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts,
The groves of Penshurst.
Sydney here was born,
Sydney, than whom no gentler, braver man
His own delightful genius ever feign'd,
Illustrating the vales of Arcady
With courteous courage and with loyal loves.
Upon his natal day an acorn here
Was planted: it grew up a stately oak,
And in the beauty of its strength it stood
And flourish'd, when his perishable part
Had moulder'd, dust to dust. That stately oak
Itself hath moulder'd now, but Sydney's fame
Endureth in his own immortal works.
THIS to a mother's sacred memory
Her son hath hallow'd. Absent many a year
Far over sea, his sweetest dreams were still
Of that dear voice which soothed his infancy;
And after many a fight against the Moor
And Malabar, or that fierce cavalry
Which he had seen covering the boundless plain,
Even to the utmost limits where the eye
Could pierce the far horizon,.. his first thought
In safety was of her, who when she heard
The tale of that day's danger, would retire
And pour her pious gratitude to Heaven
In prayers and tears of joy. The lingering hour
Of his return, long-look'd-for, came at length,
And full of hope he reach'd his native shore.
Vain hope that puts its trust in human life!
For ere he came, the number of her days
Was full. O Reader, what a world were this,
How unendurable its weight, if they
Whom Death hath sunder'd did not meet again!
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