And lifts us, as it were, from earth to heaven,
Comes from the heart; and who confesses not
Its voice as sacred, nay almost divine,
When inly it declares on what we do,
Blaming, approving? Let an erring world
Judge as it will, we care not while we stand
Acquitted there; and oft, when clouds on clouds
Compass us round and not a track appears,
Oft is an upright heart the surest guide,
Surer and better than the subtlest head;
Still with its silent counsels thro' the dark
Onward and onward leading.
THIS Child, so lovely and so cherub-like,
(No fairer spirit in the heaven of heavens)
Say, must he know remorse? Must Passion come,
Passion in all or any of its shapes,
To cloud and sully what is now so pure?
Yes, come it must. For who, alas! has lived,
Nor in the watches of the night recalled
Words he has wished unsaid and deeds undone ?
Yes, come it must. But if, as we may hope,
He learns ere long to discipline his mind,
And onward goes, humbly and cheerfully, Assisting them that faint, weak though he be, And in his trying hours trusting in GodFair as he is, he shall be fairer still;
For what was Innocence will then be Virtue.
Oн, if the Selfish knew how much they lost, What would they not endeavour, not endure, To imitate, as far as in them lay,
Him who his wisdom and his power employs In making others happy!
IF Day reveals such wonders by her Light,
What by her Darkness cannot Night reveal?
For at her bidding when She mounts her throne
The Heavens unfold, and from the depths of Space
Sun beyond Sun, as when called forth they came,
Each with the worlds that round him rolled rejoicing,
Sun beyond Sun in numbers numberless
Shine with a radiance that is all their own!
I SAID to Time, "This venerable pile,
Its floor the earth, its roof the firmament,
Whose was it once?" He answered not, but fled
Fast as before. I turned to Fame, and asked.
"Names such as his, to thee they must be known.
Speak!" But she answered only with a sigh,
And, musing mournfully, looked on the ground.
Then to Oblivion I addressed myself,
A dismal phantom, sitting at the gate;
And, with a voice as from the grave, he cried,
"Whose it was once I care not; now 'tis mine."
WHOEVER thou art, approach, and, with a sigh,
Mark where the small remains of Greatness lie.†
There sleeps the dust of FOX for ever gone;
How near the Place where late his glory shone!
And, tho' no more ascends the voice of Prayer,
Tho' the last footsteps cease to linger there,
Still, like an awful Dream that comes again,
Alas, at best, as transient and as vain,
Still do I see (while thro' the vaults of night
The funeral-song once more proclaims the rite)
The moving Pomp along the shadowy Isle,
That, like a Darkness, filled the solemn Pile;
The illustrious line, that in long order led,
Of those, that loved Him living, mourned Him dead;
* After the Funeral of the Right Hon. CHARLES JAMES FOX.
+ Venez voir le peu qui nous reste de tant de grandeur, &c.- Bossuet. Oraison funèbre de Louis de Bourbon.
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