Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave A portion in this honoured grave; And ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such wonderous men the dust. With more than mortal powers endowed, Theirs was no common party race, Looked up the noblest of the land, The names of PITT and Fox alone. Spells of such force no wizard grave These spells are spent, and, spent with these, Genius, and taste, and talent gone, For ever tombed beneath the stone, Where, taming thought to human pride!— The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. Drop upon Fox's grave the tear, "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; "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 unmarked from northern clime, Ye heard the Border Minstrel's rhyme: His Gothic harp has o'er you rung; The bard you deigned to praise, your deathless names has sung. Stay yet, illusion, stay a while, My wildered 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 ecstasy,― It will not be it may not last The vision of enchantment's past: 1 Like frost-work in the morning ray, Each Gothic arch, memorial stone, The silent pastures bleak and brown, 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, Of one, who, in his simple mind, But thou, my friend, canst fitly tell, (For few have read romance so well) How still the legendary lay O'er poet's bosom holds its sway; How on the ancient minstrel strain |