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Of Hodney, to thine after-thoughts will rise
More grateful, thus associate with the name
Of David and the deeds of other days.
Bath, 1798.

Had fill'd his senses with tranquillity,
And ever soothed in spirit he return'd
A happier, better man. Stranger! perchance,
Therefore the stream more lovely to thine eye
Will glide along, and to the summer gale [then
The woods wave more melodious. Cleanse thou
The weeds and mosses from this letter'd stone.

Westbury, 1798.

IX.

EPITAPH ON ALGERNON SYDNEY.

HERE Sydney lies, he whom perverted law,
The pliant jury, and the bloody judge,
Doom'd to a traitor's death. A tyrant King
Required, an abject country saw and shared
The crime. The noble cause of Liberty
He loved in life, and to that noble cause
In death bore witness. But his Country rose
Like Samson from her sleep, and broke her chains,
And proudly with her worthies she enroll'd
Her murder'd Sydney's name. The voice of man
Gives honor or destroys; but earthly power
Gives not, nor takes away, the self-applause
Which on the scaffold suffering virtue feels,
Nor that which God appointed its reward.
Westbury, 1798.

X.

EPITAPH ON KING JOHN.

JOHN rests below. A man more infamous Never hath held the sceptre of these realms, And bruised beneath the iron rod of Power The oppressed men of England. Englishman! Curse not his memory. Murderer as he was, Coward and slave, yet he it was who sign'd

XII.

FOR A MONUMENT AT TORDESILLAS.

SPANIARD! if thou art one who bows the knee
Before a despot's footstool, hie thee hence!
This ground is holy here Padilla died,
Martyr of Freedom. But if thou dost love
Her cause, stand then as at an altar here,
And thank the Almighty that thine honest heart,
Full of a brother's feelings for mankind,
Revolts against oppression. Not unheard
Nor unavailing shall the grateful prayer
Ascend; for honest impulses will rise,
Such as may elevate and strengthen thee
For virtuous action. Relics silver-shrined,
And chaunted mass, would wake within the soul
Thoughts valueless and cold compared with these.
Bristol, 1796.

XIII.

FOR A COLUMN AT TRUXILLO.

PIZARRO here was born; a greater name
The list of Glory boasts not. Toil and Pain,

That Charter which should make thee morn and Famine and hostile Elements, and Hosts

night

Be thankful for thy birthplace: - Englishman!
That holy Charter, which shouldst thou permit
Force to destroy, or Fraud to undermine,
Thy children's groans will persecute thy soul,
For they must bear the burden of thy crime.
Westbury, 1798.

XI.

IN A FOREST.

STRANGER! whose steps have reach'd this solitude,
Know that this lonely spot was dear to one
Devoted with no unrequited zeal

To Nature. Here, delighted, he has heard
The rustling of these woods, that now perchance
Melodious to the gale of summer move;

And underneath their shade on yon smooth rock,
With gray and yellow lichens overgrown,
Often reclined; watching the silent flow
Of this perspicuous rivulet, that steals
Along its verdant course,- till all around

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 overran, 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 labor, - 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.

XIV.

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. Yet mock not thou,
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.

Bristol, 1798.

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.

Westbury, 1799.

XV.

FOR A MONUMENT AT TAUNTON.

XVII.

EPITAPH.

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

THEY suffer'd here whom Jefferies doom'd to death Which he had seen covering the boundless plain,
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!
Westbury, 1798.

XVI.

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 enamor'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

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!

Keswick, 1810.

XVIII. EPITAPH.

HERE, in the fruitful vales of Somerset,
Was Emma born, and here the Maiden grew
To the sweet season of her womanhood,
Beloved and lovely, like a plant whose leaf,
And bud, and blossom, all are beautiful.
In peacefulness her virgin years were past;
And when in prosperous wedlock she was given,
Amid the Cumbrian mountains far away
She had her summer Bower. "Twas like a dream
Of old Romance to see her when she plied
Her little skiff on Derwent's glassy lake;
The roseate evening resting on the hills,
The lake returning back the hues of heaven,
Mountains, and vales, and waters, all imbued
With beauty, and in quietness; and she,
Nymph-like, amid that glorious solitude
A heavenly presence, gliding in her joy.
But soon a wasting malady began
To prey upon her, frequent in attack,
Yet with such flattering intervals as mock
The hopes of anxious love, and most of all

The sufferer, self-deceived. During those days
Of treacherous respite, many a time hath he,
Who leaves this record of his friend, drawn back
Into the shadow from her social board,
Because too surely in her cheek he saw

Long tried and always faithful found, went forth,
The embattled hosts in equal strength array'd
And equal discipline, encountered here.
Junot, the mock Abrantes, led the French,
And, confident of skill so oft approved,

The insidious bloom of death; and then her smiles And vaunting many a victory, advanced
And innocent mirth excited deeper grief

Than when long-look'd-for tidings came at last,
That, all her sufferings ended, she was laid

Amid Madeira's orange groves to rest.

O gentle Emma! o'er a lovelier form

Against an untried foe. But when the ranks
Met in the shock of battle, man to man,
And bayonet to bayonet opposed,

The flower of France, cut down along their line,
Fell like ripe grass before the mower's scythe,

Than thine Earth never closed; nor e'er did Heaven For the strong arm and rightful cause prevail'd. Receive a purer spirit from the world.

Keswick, 1810.

That day deliver'd Lisbon from the yoke,
And babes were taught to bless Sir Arthur's name.

XIX.

FOR A MONUMENT AT ROLISSA.

TIME has been when Rolissa was a name
Ignoble, by the passing traveller heard,
And then forthwith forgotten; now in war
It is renown'd. For when to her ally,
In bondage by perfidious France oppress'd,
England sent succor, first within this realm
The fated theatre of their long strife
Confronted, here the hostile nations met.
Laborde took here his stand; upon yon point
Of Mount Saint Anna was his Eagle fix'd;
The veteran chief, disposing well all aid
Of height and glen, possess'd the mountain straits,
A post whose strength thus mann'd and profited
Seem'd to defy the enemy, and make
The vantage of assailing numbers vain.

Here, too, before the sun should bend his course
Adown the slope of heaven, so had their plans
Been timed, he look'd for Loison's army, rich
With spoils from Evora and Beja sack'd.
That hope the British Knight, areeding well,
With prompt attack prevented; and nor strength
Of ground, nor leader's skill, nor discipline
Of soldiers practised in the ways of war,
Avail'd that day against the British arm.
Resisting long, but beaten from their stand,
The French fell back; they join'd their greater host
To suffer fresh defeat, and Portugal
First for Sir Arthur wreathed her laurels here.

XX.

FOR A MONUMENT AT VIMEIRO.

THIS is Vimeiro; yonder stream, which flows
Westward through heathery highlands to the sea,
Is call'd Maceira, till of late a name,
Save to the dwellers of this peaceful vale,
Known only to the coasting mariner;
Now in the bloody page of war inscribed.
When to the aid of injured Portugal
Struggling against the intolerable yoke

Of treacherous France, England, her old ally,

XXI.

AT CORUÑA.

WHEN from these shores the British army first
Boldly advanced into the heart of Spain,
The admiring people who beheld its march
Call'd it "the Beautiful." And surely well
Its proud array, its perfect discipline,
Its ample furniture of war complete,
Its powerful horse, its men of British mould,
All high in heart and hope, all of themselves
Assured, and in their leaders confident,
Deserved the title. Few short weeks elapsed
Ere hither that disastrous host return'd,
A fourth of all its gallant force consumed
In hasty and precipitate retreat,

Stores, treasure, and artillery, in the wreck
Left to the fierce pursuer, horse and man
Founder'd, and stiffening on the mountain snows.
But when the exulting enemy approach'd,
Boasting that he would drive into the sea
The remnant of the wretched fugitives,
Here, ere they reach'd their ships, they turn'd at bay.
Then was the proof of British courage seen;
Against a foe far overnumbering them,
An insolent foe, rejoicing in pursuit,
Sure of the fruit of victory, whatsoe'er
Might be the fate of battle, here they stood,
And their safe embarkation—all they sought-
Won manfully. That mournful day avenged
Their sufferings, and redeem'd their country's
And thus Coruña, which in this retreat [name;
Had seen the else indelible reproach
Of England, saw the stain effaced in blood.

XXII. ЕРІТАРН.

He who in this unconsecrated ground
Obtain'd a soldier's grave, hath left a name
Which will endure in history: the remains
Of Moore, the British General, rest below.
His early prowess Corsica beheld,

When, at Mozello, bleeding, through the breach

He passed victorious; the Columbian isles
Then saw him tried; upon the sandy downs
Of Holland was his riper worth approved;
And leaving on the Egyptian shores his blood,
He gathered there fresh palms. High in repute
A gallant army last he led to Spain,
In arduous times; for moving in his strength,
With all his mighty means of war complete,
The Tyrant Bonaparte bore down all
Before him; and the British Chief beheld,
Where'er he look'd, rout, treason, and dismay,
All sides with all embarrassments beset,
And danger pressing on. Hither he came
Before the far outnumbering hosts of France
Retreating to her ships, and close pursued;
Nor were there wanting men who counsell'd him
To offer terms, and from the enemy
Purchase a respite to embark in peace,
At price of such abasement, -even to this,
Brave as they were, by hopelessness subdued.
That shameful counsel Moore, in happy hour
Remembering what was due to England's name,
Refused: he fought, he conquer'd, and he fell.

XXIII.

TO THE

MEMORY OF PAUL BURRARD,

MORTALLY WOUNDED IN THE BATTLE OF CORUÑA.

MYSTERIOUS are the ways of Providence !

Paul Burrard on Coruña's fatal field
Received his mortal hurt. Not unprepared
The heroic youth was found; for in the ways
Of piety had he been trained; and what
The dutiful child upon his mother's knees
Had learnt, the soldier faithfully observed.
In chamber or in tent, the Book of God
Was his beloved manual; and his life
Beseem'd the lessons which from thence he drew.
For, gallant as he was, and blithe of heart,
Expert of hand, and keen of eye, and prompt
In intellect, religion was the crown
Of all his noble properties. When Paul
Was by, the scoffer, self-abased, restrain'd
The license of his speech; and ribaldry
Before his virtuous presence sate rebuked.
And yet so frank and affable a form
His virtue wore,
that wheresoe'er he moved,
A sunshine of good-will and cheerfulness
Enliven'd all around. Oh! marvel not,
If, in the morning of his fair career,
Which promised all that honor could bestow
On high desert, the youth was summon'd hence!
His soul required no further discipline,

Pure as it was, and capable of Heaven.

Upon the spot from whence he just had seen
His General borne away, the appointed ball
Reach'd him. But not on that Gallician ground
Was it his fate, like many a British heart,
To mingle with the soil; the sea received
His mortal relics, - to a watery grave

Consign'd so near his native shore, so near
His father's house, that they who loved him best,
Unconscious of its import, heard the gun
Which fired his knell.- Alas! if it were known,

Old men, who have grown gray in camps, and When, in the strife of nations, dreadful Death wish'd,

And pray'd, and sought in battle to lay down
The burden of their age, have seen the young
Fall round, themselves untouch'd; and balls beside
The graceless and the unblest head have past,
Harmless as hail, to reach some precious life,
For which clasp'd hands, and supplicating eyes,
Duly at morn and eve were raised to Heaven;
And, in the depth and loneness of the soul,
(Then boding all too truly,) midnight prayers
Breathed from an anxious pillow wet with tears.
But blessed, even amid their grief, are they
Who, in the hour of visitation, bow
Beneath the unerring will, and look toward
Their Heavenly Father, merciful as just!

They, while they own his goodness, feel that whom
He chastens, them he loves. The cup he gives,

Mows down with indiscriminating sweep
His thousands ten times told,—if it were known
What ties are sever'd then, what ripening hopes
Blasted, what virtues in their bloom cut off;
How far the desolating scourge extends;
How wide the misery spreads; what hearts beneath
Their grief are broken, or survive to feel
Always the irremediable loss, -

Oh! who of woman born could bear the thought?
Who but would join with fervent piety
The prayer that asketh in our time for peace?
Nor in our time alone! - Enable us,

--

Father which art in heaven! but to receive
And keep thy word: thy kingdom then should

come,

Thy will be done on earth; the victory
Accomplished over Sin as well as Death,

Shall they not drink it? Therefore doth the draught | And the great scheme of Providence fulfill'd. Resent of comfort in its bitterness,

And carry healing with it. What but this

Could have sustain'd the mourners who were left,
With life-long yearnings, to remember him
Whose early death this monumental verse
Records? For never more auspicious hopes
Were nipp'd in flower, nor finer qualities
From goodliest fabric of mortality
Divorced, nor virtues worthier to adorn
The world transferr'd to heaven, than when, ere
Had measured him the space of nineteen years,

[time

XXIV.

FOR THE BANKS OF THE DOURO.
CROSSING in unexampled enterprise
This great and perilous stream, the English host
Effected here their landing, on the day
When Soult from Porto with his troops was driven.

No sight so joyful ever had been seen
From Douro's banks,- not when the mountains
Their generous produce down, or homeward fleets
Entered from distant seas their port desired;
Nor e'er were shouts of such glad mariners
So gladly heard, as then the cannon's peal,
And short, sharp strokes of frequent musketry,
By the delivered habitants that hour.

[sent | Before the bayonet driven. Again at morn
They made their fiery onset, and again
Repell'd, again at noon renew'd the strife.
Yet was their desperate perseverance vain,
Where skill by equal skill was countervail'd,
And numbers by superior courage foil'd;
And when the second night drew over them
Its sheltering cope, in darkness they retired,
At all points beaten. Long in the red page
Of war shall Talavera's famous name
Stand forth conspicuous. While that name endures,
Bear in thy soul, O Spain, the memory
Of all thou suffered'st from perfidious France,
Of all that England in thy cause achieved.

For they who, beaten then and routed, fled
Before victorious England, in their day
Of triumph, had, like fiends let loose from hell,
Fill'd yon devoted city with all forms

Of horror, all unutterable crimes;

And vengeance now had reach'd the inhuman race
Accurs'd. Oh, what a scene did Night behold
Within those rescued walls, when festal fires,
And torches, blazing through the bloody streets,
Stream'd their broad light where horse and man

in death

Unheeded lay outstretch'd! Eyes which had wept
In bitterness so long, shed tears of joy,

And from the broken heart thanksgiving, mix'd
With anguish, rose to Heaven. Sir Arthur then
Might feel how precious in a righteous cause
Is victory, how divine the soldier's meed
When grateful nations bless the avenging sword!

XXV.

TALAVERA.

FOR THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

XXVI.

FOR THE DESERTO DE BUSACO.

READER, thou standest upon holy ground,
Which Penitence hath chosen for itself,
And war, disturbing the deep solitude,
Hath left it doubly sacred. On these heights
The host of Portugal and England stood,
Arrayed against Massena, when the chief,
Proud of Rodrigoo and Almeida won,
Press'd forward, thinking the devoted realm
Full sure should fall a prey. He in his pride
Scorn'd the poor numbers of the English foe,
And thought the children of the land would fly
From his advance, like sheep before the wolf,
Scattering, and lost in terror. Ill he knew
The Lusitanian spirit! Ill he knew

YON wide-extended town, whose roofs, and towers, The arm, the heart of England! Ill he knew

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And poplar avenues are seen far off,
In goodly prospect over scatter'd woods
Of dusky ilex, boasts among its sons
Of Mariana's name, he who hath made
The splendid story of his country's wars
Through all the European kingdoms known.
Yet in his ample annals thou canst find
No braver battle chronicled, than here
Was waged, when Joseph, of the stolen crown,
Against the hosts of England and of Spain
His veteran armies brought. By veteran chiefs
Captain'd, a formidable force they came,
Full fifty thousand. Victor led them on,
A man grown gray in arms, nor e'er in aught
Dishonored, till by this opprobrious cause.
He, over rude Alverche's summer stream
Winning his way, made first upon the right
His hot attack, where Spain's raw levies, ranged
In double line, had taken their strong stand

In yonder broken ground, by olive groves

Her Wellington! He learnt to know them here,
That spirit and that arm, that heart, that mind,
Here on Busaco gloriously display'd,
When hence repulsed the beaten boaster wound
Below his course circuitous, and left
His thousands for the beasts and ravenous fowl.
The Carmelite who in his cell recluse
Was wont to sit, and from a skull receive
Death's silent lesson, wheresoe'er he walk,
Henceforth may find his teachers. He shall find
The Frenchmen's bones in glen and grove, on rock
And height, where'er the wolves and carrion birds
Have strewn them, wash'd in torrents, bare and
bleach'd

By sun and rain, and by the winds of heaven.

XXVII.

Cover'd and flank'd by Tagus. Soon from thence, FOR THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS.

As one whose practised eye could apprehend

All vantages in war, his troops he drew;

And on this hill, the battle's vital point,
Bore with collected power, outnumbering
The British ranks twice told. Such fearful odds
Were balanced by Sir Arthur's master mind
And by the British heart. Twice during night
The fatal spot they storm'd, and twice fell back,

THROUGH all Iberia, from the Atlantic shores
To far Pyrene, Wellington hath left
His trophies; but no monument records
To after-time a more enduring praise,

Than this which marks his triumph here attain'd
By intellect, and patience to the end
Holding through good and ill its course assign'd,

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