Works

The Fear Of Death.


Thou! whose superior, and aspiring mind
Can leave the weakness of thy sex behind;
Above its follies, and its fears can rise,
Quit the low earth, and gain the distant skies:...

Am pius extrema veniens Jacobus ab arcto
Teucrigenas populos, lateque patentia regna
Albionum tenuit, jamque inviolabile foedus
Sceptra Caledoniis conjunxerat Anglica Scotis:...

Am pius extrema veniens Jacobus ab arcto
Teucrigenas populos, lateque patentia regna
Albionum tenuit, jamque inviolabile foedus
Sceptra Caledoniis conjunxerat Anglica Scotis:...

It was a 'moral' end for which they fought;
Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame,
Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim,
A resolution, or enlivening thought?...

All of us in one you'll find,
Brethren of a wondrous kind;
Yet among us all no brother
Knows one tittle of the other;
We in frequent councils are,
And our marks of things declare,...

Wavered the foremost soldiers,--then fell back.
Fallen was their leader, and loomed right before
The sullen Prussian cannon, grim and black,
With lighted matches waving. Now, once more,...

Deem not this book a creed, 't is but the cry
Of one who fears not death, yet would not die;
Who at the table feigns with sorry jest.
To love the wine the Master's hand has pressed,...

Arran! a single-crested Teneriffe,
A St. Helena next in shape and hue,
Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue;
Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff
Built for the air, or winged Hippogriff?...

The castle clock had tolled midnight:
With mattock and with spade,
And silent, by the torches' light,
His corse in earth we laid.

The coffin bore his name, that those
Of other years might know,...

Cocoa-nut naught,
Fish too dear,
None must be bought
For us that are here:


No lobster on earth,
That ever I saw,
To me would be worth
Sixpence a claw.

...

What portents, from what distant region, ride,
Unseen till now in ours, the astonish'd tide?
In ages past, old Proteus, with his droves
Of sea-calves, sought the mountains and the groves....

Fairfax, whose name in armes through Europe rings
Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,
And all her jealous monarchs with amaze,
And rumors loud, that daunt remotest kings,...

1.
It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain-peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie...

Below this marble monument is laid
All that heaven wants of this celestial maid.
Preserve, O sacred tomb! thy trust consign'd;
The mould was made on purpose for the mind:...

Because you have thrown of your Prelate Lord,
And with stiff Vowes renounc'd his Liturgie
To seise the widdow'd whore Pluralitie
From them whose sin ye envi'd, not abhor'd,...

When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never,
Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load
Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever....

Oh! gather whencesoe'er ye safely may
The help which slackening Pity requires;
Nor deem that he perforce must go astray
Who treads upon the footmarks of his sires.


...

Tune - "O'er the hills," &c.


I.

How can my poor heart be glad,
When absent from my sailor lad?
How can I the thought forego,
He's on the seas to meet the foe?...

We never sang together
Ravenscroft's terse old tune
On Sundays or on weekdays,
In sharp or summer weather,
At night-time or at noon.

Why did we never sing it,
Why never so incline...

Here lies old Hobson, Death hath broke his girt,
And here alas, hath laid him in the dirt,
Or els the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown....