To mute and to material things New life revolving summer brings; The genial call dead Nature hears, And in her glory reappears. But oh, 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 grasp’d 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 hallow’d 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, Roll’d, blazed, destroy’d--and was no more. Nor mourn ye less his perish’d worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launch’d 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, Spurn’d at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, when the frantic crowd amain Strain’d at subjection’s bursting rein, O’er their wild mood full conquest gain’d, The pride he would not crush, restrain’d, Show’d their fierce zeal a worthier cause, And brought the freeman’s arm to aid the freeman’s laws. Hadst thou but lived, though stripp’d 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 propp’d the tottering throne. Now is the stately column broke, The beacon-light is quench’d in smoke, The trumpet’s silver voice is still, The warder silent on the hill! O think, how to his latest day, When Death, just hovering, claim’d his prey. With Palinure’s unalter’d mood Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repell’d, 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 hallow’d 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!