Despond who will--_I_ heard a voice exclaim, ‘Though fierce the assault, and shattered the defence, It cannot be that Britain’s social frame, The glorious work of time and providence, Before a flying season’s rash pretence, Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to shame, When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror’s aim, Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense The cloud is; but brings that a day of doom To Liberty? Her sun is up the while, That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred shone: Then laugh, ye innocent Vales! ye Streams, sweep on, Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume.’ _William Wordsworth._ SCOTT XLI IN MEMORIAM (NELSON: PITT: FOX) To mute and to material things New life revolving summer brings; The genial call dead Nature hears, And in her glory reappears. But O my Country’s wintry state What second spring shall renovate? What powerful call shall bid arise The buried warlike and the wise; The mind that thought for Britain’s weal, The hand that grasped the victor steel? The vernal sun new life bestows Even on the meanest flower that blows; But vainly, vainly may he shine, Where glory weeps o’er NELSON’S shrine; And vainly pierce the solemn gloom, That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallowed tomb! Deep graved in every British heart, O never let those names depart! Say to your sons,--Lo, here his grave, Who victor died on Gadite wave; To him, as to the burning levin, Short, bright, resistless course was given. Where’er his country’s foes were found Was heard the fated thunder’s sound, Till burst the bolt on yonder shore, Rolled, blazed, destroyed,--and was no more. Nor mourn ye less his perished worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launched that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar; Who, born to guide such high emprise, For Britain’s weal was early wise; Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain’s sins, an early grave! His worth, who in his mightiest hour A bauble held the pride of power, Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, from the frantic crowd amain Strained at subjection’s bursting rein, O’er their wild mood full conquest gained, The pride he would not crush restrained, Showed their fierce zeal a worthier cause, And brought the freeman’s arm to aid the freeman’s laws. Hadst thou but lived, though stripped of power, A watchman on the lonely tower, Thy thrilling trump had roused the land, When fraud or danger were at hand; By thee, as by the beacon-light, Our pilots had kept course aright; As some proud column, though alone, Thy strength had propped the tottering throne: Now is the stately column broke, The beacon-light is quenched in smoke, The trumpet’s silver sound is still, The warder silent on the hill!