O for the death of those
Who for their country die,
Sink on her bosom to repose,
And triumph where they die!
How beautiful in death
The WARRIOR's corse appears,
Embalmed by fond Affection's breath,
And bathed in WOMAN's tears!
Their loveliest native earth
Enshrines the fallen brave;
In the dear land that gave them birth
They find their tranquil grave.
-But the wild waves shall sweep
BRITANNIA's foes away,
And the blue monsters of the deep
Be surfeited with prey.-
-Thus vanish BRITAIN'S foes
From her consuming eye;
But rich be the reward of those,
Who conquer,-those who die.
O'ershadowing laurels deck,
The living hero's brows;
But lovelier wreaths entwine his neck,
His children and his spouse.
Exulting o'er his lot,
The dangers he has braved,
He clasps the dear ones, hails the cot,
Which his own valour saved.
DAUGHTERS OF ALBION, weep;
On this triumphant plain,
Your fathers, husbands, brethren sleep,
For you and freedom slain.
O gently close the eye
That loved to look on you;
O seal the lip whose earliest sigh,
Whose latest breath was true:
With knots of sweetest flowers
Their windingsheet perfume;
And wash their wounds with truelove showers, And dress them for the tomb.
For beautiful in death
The WARRIOR's corse appears,
Embalmed by fond Affectation's breath
And bathed in WOMAN'S tears.
-Give me the death of those
Who for their country die;
And O be mine like their repose,
When cold and low they lie!
Their loveliest mother Earth
Entwines the fallen brave,
In her sweet lap who gave them birth
They find their tranquil grave.
This shadow on the Dial's face,
That steals from day to day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Moments, and months, and years away;-
This shadow, which, in every clime,
Since light and motion first began,
Hath held its course sublime;-
What is it? Mortal Man I
It is the scythe of TIME:-
A shadow only to the eye;
Yet, in its calm career,
It levels all beneath the sky!
And still through each succeeding year,
Right onward, with resistless power,
Its stroke shall darken every hour,
Till Nature's race be run,
And Time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun.
Nor only o'er the Dial's face,
This silent phantom, day by day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Steals moments, months, and years away;
From hoary rock and aged tree,
From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls,
From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea,
From every blade of grass, it falls;
For still where'er a shadow weeps,
The scythe of time destroys,
And man at every footstep weeps
O'er evanescent joys;
Like flowerets glittering with the dews of morn,
Fair for a moment, then for ever shorn:
-Ah! soon, beneath the inevitable blow,
I too shall lie in dust and darkness low.
Then TIME, the Conqueror will suspend
His scythe, a trophy, o'er my tomb,
Whose moving shadow shall portend
Each frail beholder's doom.
O'er the wide earth's illumined space,
Though TIME'S triumphant flight be shown,
The truest index on its face
Points from the churchyard stone.
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