THOU who hast reach d this level where the glede,
Wheeling between the mountains in mid air,
Eastward or westward as his gyre inclines,
Descries the German or the Atlantic Sea,
Pause here; and, as thou seest the ship pursue
Her easy way serene, call thou to mind
By what exertions of victorious art
The way was open'd. Fourteen times upheaved,
The vessel hath ascended, since she changed
The salt sea water for the highland lymph ;
As oft in imperceptible descent
Must, step by step, be lower'd, before she woo
The ocean breeze again. Thou hast beheld
What basins, most capacious of their kind,
Enclose her, while the obedient element
Lifts or depones its burthen. Thou hast seen
The torrent hurrying from its native hills
Pass underneath the broad canal inhumed,
Then issue harmless thence; the rivulet
Admitted by its intake peaceably,
Forthwith by gentle overfall discharged :
And haply too thou hast observed the herds
Frequent their vaulted path, unconscious they
That the wide waters on the long low arch
Above them, lie sustained. What other works
Science, audacious in emprize, hath wrought,
Meet not the eye, but well may fill the mind.
Not from the bowels of the land alone,
From lake and stream hath their diluvial wreck
Been scoop'd to form this navigable way;
Huge rivers were controll'd, or from their course
Shoulder'd aside; and at the eastern mouth,
Where the salt ooze denied a resting place,
There were the deep foundations laid, by weight
On weight immersed, and pile on pile down-driven,
Till steadfast as the everlasting rocks,
The massive outwork stands. Contemplate now
What days and nights of thought, what years of toil,
What inexhaustive springs of public wealth
The vast design required; the immediate good,
The future benefit progressive still;
And thou wilt pay thy tribute of due praise
To those whose counsels, whose decrees, whose care, For after ages formed the generous work.
WHERE these capacious basins, by the laws
Of the subjacent element receive
The ship, descending or upraised, eight times,
From stage to stage with unfelt agency
Translated; fitliest may the marble here
Record the Architect's immortal name.
Telford it was, by whose presiding mind
The whole great work was plann'd and perfected;
Telford, who o'er the vale of Cambrian Dee,
Aloft in air, at giddy height upborne,
Carried his navigable road, and hung
High o'er Menaï's straits the bending bridge;
Structures of more ambitious enterprize
Than minstrels in the age of old romance
To their own Merlin's magic lore ascribed.
Nor hath he for his native land perform'd
Less in this proud design; and where his piers
Around her coast from many a fisher's creek
Unshelter'd else, and many an ample port,
Repel the assailing storm; and where his roads
In beautiful and sinuous line far seen,
Wind with the vale, and win the long ascent,
Now o'er the deep morass sustain d, and now
Across ravine, or glen, or estuary,
Opening a passage through the wilds subdued.
EPITAPH IN BUTLEIGH CHURCH.
DIVIDED far by death were they, whose names
In honour here united, as in birth,
This monumental verse records. They drew
In Dorset's healthy vales their natal breath,
And from these shores beheld the ocean first,
Whereon in early youth, with one accord
They chose their way of fortune; to that course
By Hood and Bridport's bright example drawn,
Their kinsmen, children of this place, and sons
Of one, who in his faithful ministry
Inculcated within these hallowed walls
The truths in mercy to mankind reveal'd.
Worthy were these three brethren each to add
New honours to the already honour'd name
But Arthur, in the morning of his day,
Perish'd amid the Caribbean sea,
When the Pomona, by a hurricane
Whirl'd, riven and overwhelmed, with all her crew
Into the deep went down. A longer date
To Alexander was assign'd, for hope,
For fair ambition, and for fond regret,
Alas, how short! for duty, for desert,
Sufficing; and, while Time preserves the roll
Of Britain's naval feats, for good report.
A boy, with Cook he rounded the great globe;
A youth, in many a celebrated fight
With Rodney had his part; and having reach'd
Life's middle stage, engaging ship to ship,
When the French Hercules, a gallant foe,
Struck to the British Mars his three-striped flag,
He fell, in the moment of his victory.
Here his remains in sure and certain hope
Are laid, until the hour when Earth and Sea
Shall render up their dead. One brother yet
Survived, with Keppel and with Rodney train'd
In battles, with the Lord of Nile approved,
Ere in command he worthily upheld
Old England's high prerogative. In the east,
The west, the Baltic and the Midland seas,
Yea, wheresoever hostile fleets have plough'd
The ensanguined deep, his thunders have been heard,
His flag in brave defiance hath been seen;
And bravest enemies at Sir Samuel's name
Felt fatal presage in their inmost heart,
Of unavertible defeat foredoom'd.
Thus in the path of glory he rode on,
Victorious alway, adding praise to praise;
Till full of honours, not of years, beneath
The venom of the infected clime he sunk,
On Coromandel's coast, completing there
His service, only when his life was spent.
To the three brethren, Alexander's son
(Sole scion he in whom their line survived),
With English feeling, and the deeper sense
Of filial duty, consecrates this tomb.
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