Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave A portion in this honour'd grave. And ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such wondrous men the dust. With more than mortal powers endow'd, Theirs was no common party race, Till through the British world were known The names of PITT and Fox alone. Spells of such force no wizard grave Genius, and taste, and talent gone, For ever tomb'd beneath the stone, Where-taming thought to human pride !— "Twill trickle to his rival's bier ; O'er PITT's the mournful requiem sound, And Fox's shall the notes rebound. The solemn echo seems to cry,— "Here let their discord with them die. 66 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?' Rest, ardent Spirits! till the cries Of dying Nature bid you rise; Not even your Britain's groans can pierce The leaden silence of your hearse; Then, O, how impotent and vain This grateful tributary strain! Though not unmark'd from northern clime, Ye heard the Border Minstrel's rhyme : His Gothic harp has o'er you rung; The Bard you deign'd to praise, your deathless names has sung. Stay yet, illusion, stay a while, My wilder'd fancy still beguile! Ere half unloaded is my heart! For all the tears e'er sorrow drew, And all the raptures fancy knew, And all the keener rush of blood, That throbs through bard in bard-like mood, Were here a tribute mean and low, Though all their mingled streams could flow Woe, wonder, and sensation high, In one spring-tide of ecstacy! It will not be-it may not last- Like frost-work in the morning ray, The fancied fabric melts away; Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone, And long, dim, lofty aisle, are gone; Prompt on unequal tasks to run, Thus Nature disciplines her son: Meeter, she says, for me to stray, And waste the solitary day, In plucking from yon fen the reed, And watch it floating down the Tweed ; Or idly list the shrilling lay With which the milk-maid cheers her way, Marking its cadence rise and fail, May boast of book-learn'd taste refined. But thou, my friend, can'st fitly tell, (For few have read romance so well,) How still the legendary lay O'er poet's bosom holds its sway; Time lays his palsied hand in vain ; |