at Drury Lane Theatre, on the first opening of the house after the death of the Princess Charlotte, 1817.
RITONS! although our task is but to show,
The scenes and passions of fictitious woe,
Think not we come this night without a part
In that deep sorrow of the public heart,
Which like a shade hath darkened every place,
And moistened with a tear the manliest face!
The bell is scarcely hushed in Windsor's piles,
That tolled a requiem from the solemn aisles,
For her, the royal flower, low laid in dust,
That was your fairest hope, your fondest trust.
Unconscious of the doom, we dreamt, alas!
That e'en these walls, ere many months should pass,
Which but return sad accents for her now,
Perhaps had witnessed her benignant brow,
Cheered by the voice you would have raised on high,
In bursts of British love and loyalty.
But, Britain! now thy chief, thy people mourn,
And Claremont's home of love is left forlorn-
There, where the happiest of the happy dwelt,
The 'scutcheon glooms, and royalty hath felt
A wound that every bosom feels its own-
The blessing of a father's heart o'erthrown-
The most beloved and most devoted bride
Torn from an agonisèd husband's side,
Who "long as Memory holds her seat" shall view
That speechless, more than spoken last adieu,
When the fixed eye long looked connubial faith,
And beamed affection in the trance of death.
Sad was the pomp that yesternight beheld,
As with the mourner's heart the anthem swelled;
While torch succeeding torch illumed each high
And bannered arch of England's chivalry.
The rich plumed canopy, the gorgeous pall,
The sacred march, and sable-vested wall-
These were not rites of inexpressive show,
But hallowed as the types of real woe!
Daughter of England! for a nation's sighs,
A nation's heart went with thine obsequies !-
And oft shall time revert a look of grief
On thine existence, beautiful and brief.
Fair spirit! send thy blessing from above
On realms where thou art canonised by love!
Give to a father's, husband's bleeding mind,
The peace that angel's lend to human kind;
To us who in thy loved remembrance feel
A sorrowing, but a soul-ennobling zeal—
A loyalty that touches all the best
And loftiest principles of England's breast!
Still may thy name speak concord from the tomb-
Still in the Muse's breath thy memory bloom!
They shall describe thy life-thy form portray ;
But all the love that mourns thee swept away,
'Tis not in language or expressive arts
To paint-yet feel it, Britons, in your hearts!
On receiving a Seal with the Campbell crest, from before her marriage.
HIS wax returns not back more fair
The impression of the gift you send,
Than stamped upon my thoughts I bear
The image of your worth, my friend!
We are not friends of yesterday;
But poet's fancies are a little
Disposed to cool and heat (they say),
By turns impressible and brittle.
Well! should its frailty e'er condemn
My heart to prize or please you less,
Your type is still the sealing gem,
And mine the waxen brittleness,
What transcripts of my weal and woe
This little signet yet may lock-
What utterances to friend or foe,
In reason's calm or passion's shock !
What scenes of life's yet curtained page
May own its confidential die,
Whose stamp awaits the unwritten page,
And feelings of futurity !
Yet wheresoe'er my pen I lift
To date the epistolary sheet,
The blest occasion of the gift
Shall make its recollection sweet;
Sent when the star that rules your fates
Hath reached its influence most benign-
When every heart congratulates,
And none more cordially than mine.
So speed my song-marked with the crest
That erst the adventurous Norman* wore,
Who won the Lady of the West,
The daughter of Macaillain Mor.
Crest of my sires! whose blood it sealed
With glory in the strife of swords,
Ne'er may the scroll that bears it yield
Degenerate thoughts or faithless words!
Yet little might I prize the stone,
If it but typed the feudal tree
From whence, a scattered leaf, I'm blown
In Fortune's mutability.
No-but it tells me of a heart,
Allied by friendship's living tie;
A prize beyond the herald's art-
Our soul-sprung consanguinity!
Katherine! to many an hour of mine
Light wings and sunshine you have lent;
And so adieu, and still be thine
The all-in-all of life-Content!
* A Norman leader, Gilliespie le Camile, in the service of the king of Scotland, married the heiress of Lochaw in the twelfth century, and from him the Campbells are sprung.
HE brave Roland !-the brave Roland !—
False tidings reached the Rhenish strand
That he had fallen in fight;
And thy faithful bosom swooned with pain,
O loveliest maiden of Allémayne !
For the loss of thine own true knight.
But why so rash has she ta'en the veil,
In yon Nonnenwerder's cloisters pale?
For her vow had scarce been sworn,
And the fatal mantle o'er her flung,
When the Drachenfells to a trumpet rung-
'Twas her own dear warrior's horn!
Woe! woe! each heart shall bleed-shall break! She would have hung upon his neck,
Had he come but yester-even;
And he had clasped those peerless charms
That shall never, never fill his arms,
Or meet him but in heaven.
Yet Roland the brave-Roland the true-
He could not bid that spot adieu;
It was dear still 'midst his woes;
For he loved to breathe the neighbouring air,
And to think she blessed him in her prayer,
When the Halleluiah rose.
There's yet one window of that pile,
Which he built above the Nun's green isle;
Thence sad and oft looked he
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