O think, how to his latest day, When death, just hovering, claimed his prey, With Palinure’s unaltered mood Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repelled, With dying hand the rudder held, Till in his fall with fateful sway, The steerage of the realm gave way! Then, while on Britain’s thousand plains One unpolluted church remains, Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent around The bloody tocsin’s maddening sound, But still, upon the hallowed day, Convoke the swains to praise and pray; While faith and civil peace are dear, Grace this cold marble with a tear,-- He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here! 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 ever harsher thought suppressed, And sacred be the long last 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 agen, ‘All peace on earth, good-will to men’; If ever from an English heart, O, _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.