Then, while Ambition's trump, from age to age,
It's flaughter'd millions boasts; while Fame shall rear
Her deathlefs trophies o'er the bard and fage,
Be mine the widow's figh, the orphan's prayer!
HE feftive roar of laughter, the warm glow
Of brifk-ey'd joy, and friendship's genial bowl,
Wit's feafon'd converfe, and the liberal flow
Of unfufpicious youth, profufe of foul,
Delight not ever; from the boisterous scene
Of riot far, and Comus' wild uproar,
From Folly's crowd, whofe vacant brow ferene
Was never knit to Wisdom's frowning lore,
Permit me, ye time-hallow'd domes, ye piles
Of rude magnificence, your folemn rest,
Amid your fretted vaults and length'ning ifles,
Lonely to wander; no unholy guest,
That means to break, with facrilegious tread,
The marble flumbers of your monumented dead.
Permit me with fad mufings, that infpire
Unlabour'd numbers apt, your filence drear
Blameless to wake, and with th' Orphean lyre
Fitly attemper'd, foothe the merciless ear
Of Hades, and ftern Death, whose iron sway
Great Nature owns thro' all her wide domain;
All that with oary fin cleave their smooth way
Thro' the green bofom of the spawny main,
And those that to the ftreaming ether spread,
In many a wheeling glide, their feathery fail;
And those that creep; and those that statelier tread,
That roam o'er foreft, hill, or browzed dale;
The victims each of ruthless fate must fall;
E'en God's own image, Man, high paramount of all.
III.
And ye, the young, the giddy, and the gay,
That startle from the fleepful lid of light
The curtain'd rest, and with the diffonant bray
Of Bacchus, and loud jollity, affright
Yon radiant goddefs, that now shoots among
These many-window'd ifles her glimmering beam ;
Know, that or ere it's starr'd career along
Thrice fhall have roll'd her filvery-wheeled team,
Some parent breast may heave the answering figh,
To the flow pauses of the funeral knoll;
E'en now black Atropos, with fcowling eye,
Roars in the laugh, and revels o'er the bowl,
E'en now in rofy-crowned Pleasure's wreath
Entwines in adder folds all unsuspected Death.
IV..
Know, on the stealing wing of time shall flee
Some few, fome fhort-liv'd years-and all is past;
A future bard these awful domes may fee,
Muse o'er the present age as I the last;
Who mouldering in the grave, yet once like you
The various maze of life were seen to tread,
Each bent their own peculiar to pursue,
As custom urg'd, or wilful nature led;
Mix'd with the various crowd's inglorious clay,
The nobler virtues undiftinguish'd lie;
No more to melt with Beauty's heav'n-born ray,
No more to wet Compaffion's tearful eye,
Catch from the poet raptures not their own,
And feel the thrilling melody of sweet renown.
Where is the mafter-hand, whofe femblant art
Chiffei'd the marble into life, or taught
From the well-pencil'd portraiture to start
The nerve that beat with foul, the brow that thought!
Cold are the fingers that in ftone-fix'd trance
The mute-attention rivetting, to the lyre
Struck language: dimm'd the poet's quick-ey'd glance,
All in wild raptures flafhing heaven's own fire.
Shrunk is the finew'd energy, that ftrung"
The warrior arm! Where fleeps the patriot breaft
Whilome that heav'd impaffion'd! where the tongue
That lanc'd it's lightning on the towering creft
Of scepter'd infolence, and overthrew
Giant Oppreffion, leagu'd with all her earth-born crew!
These now are paft: long, long, ye fleeting years,
Purfue, with glory wing'd, your fated way, Ere from the womb of time unwelcome peers
The dawn of that inevitable day;
When wrapt in shrouded clay their warmest friend
The widow'd virtues fhall again deplore,
When o'er his urn in pious grief fhall bend
His Britain, and bewail one patriot more
For foon must thou, too foon! who spread'ft abroad
Thy beaming emanations unconfin'd,
Doom'd, like fome better angel fent of God
To fcatter bleffings over humankind, Thou too muft fall, O Pitt! to fhine no more,
And tread those dreadful paths a Faulkland trod before!
Faft to the driving winds the marshall'd cloud's
Sweep difcontinuous o'er th' etherial plain;
Another ftill upon another crouds,
All haftening downward to their native mau,
Thus paffes o'er, thro' varied life's career,
Man's fleeting age; the feasons, as they fly, Snatch from us in their courfe, year after year, Some sweet connection, fome endearing tie. The parent, ever-honour'd, ever dear,
Claims from the filial breaft the pious figh; A brother's urn demands the kindred tear,
And gentle forrows gufh from Friendship's eye.
To-day we frolick in the rofy bloom
Of jocund youth-the morrow knells us to the tomb.
VIII.
Who knows how foon, in this fepulchral spot,
Shall Heaven to me the drear abode affign?
How foon the past irrevocable lot
Of these that reft beneath me, shall be mine?
Haply, when Zephyr to thy native bourn-
Shall waft thee o'er the ftorm'd Hibernian wave,
Thy gentle breaft, my Tavistock *, shall mourn
To find me fleeping in the fenfeless grave.
No more the focial leifure to divide,
In the sweet intercourse of foul and foul,
Blythe, or of graver brow; no more to chide
The ling'ring years impatient as they roll,
Till all thy cultur'd virtues fhall display,
Full bloffom'd, their bright honours to the gazing day.
Ah, dearest youth! thefe vows, perhaps unheard,
The rude wind fcatters o'er the billowy main;
These prayers, at Friendship's holy shrine preferr'd,
May rife to grafp their father's knees in vain.
* Francis, Marquis of Tavistock, only fon to the Duke of Bedford; whose death, which happened on the 22d of March 1767, was occafioned by a fall from his horfe, which he received while hunting a few days before.-Mr. Emily was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and had been tutor to the Marquis: he died in the year 1762, being then Major of the Surry militia; five years before the melancholy accident which deprived the world of his noble and univerfally lamented pupil.
Soon, foon may nod the fad funereal plume
With folemn horror o'er thy timeless hearse,
And I furvive to grave upon thy tomb
The mournful tribute of memorial verse !
That leave to Heaven's decision: be it thine,
Higher than yet a parent's wishes flew,
To foar in bright pre-eminence, and shine
With felf-earn'd honours, eager to pursue,
Where glory, with her clear unfully'd rays,
The well-born fpirit lights to deeds of mightiest praife.
.X.
'Twas the thy god-like Ruffel's bofom steel'd
With confidence untam'd, in his last breath
Stern-fmiling. She, with calm compofure, held
The patriot axe of Sidney, edg'd with death.
Smit with the warmth of her impulfive flame,
Wolfe's gallant virtue flies to worlds afar,
Emulous to pluck fresh wreaths of well-earn'd fame
From the grim frowning brow of laurel'd war.
"Twas the, that on the morn of direful birth,
Bare'd thy young bofom to the fatal blow,
Lamented Armytage! the bleeding youth!
O bathe him in the pearly caves below,
Ye Nereids and ye Nymphs of Camus hoar,
Weep-for ye oft have seen him on your haunted hore.
XI.
Better to die with glory than recline
On the foft lap of ignominious peace,
Than yawn out the dull droning life fupine
In monkish apathy and gowned ease.
Better employ'd, in honour's bright career,
The leaft divifion on the dial's round,
Than thrice to compafs Saturn's live long year,
Grown old in floth, the burden of the ground;
Sir John Armytage, member of parliament for the city of York, who was killed at St. Cas, in the year 1758.
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