Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy _requiescat_ dumb,
Lest it be said o’er Fox’s tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost
When best employed, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy’s glow—
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And if thou mourn’st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppressed,
And sacred be the last long rest.
_Here_, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
_Here_, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke again,
“All peace on earth, goodwill to men;”
If ever from an English heart,
Oh, _here_ let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouched to France’s yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian’s purpose brave
Was bartered by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonour’s peace he spurned,
The sullied olive-branch returned,
Stood for his country’s glory fast,
And nailed her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honoured grave,
And ne’er held marble in its trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust.
With more than mortal powers endowed,
How high they soared above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Looked up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of Pitt and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
E’er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky,
These spells are spent, and, spent with these,
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombed beneath the stone,
Where—taming thought to human pride!—
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox’s grave the tear,
’Twill trickle to his rival’s bier;
O’er Pitt’s the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox’s shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry—
“Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom Fate made brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like again?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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