With doleful noise the matrons scream around, With female shrieks the vaulted roofs rebound: A dismal noise! Now one promiscuous roar 50 Cries, "Ah! the noble Frederic is no more!" The chief reluctant yields his latest breath; His eye-lids settle in the shades of death; Dark sable shades present before each eye, And the deep vast abyss, Eternity! Through perpetuity's expanse he springs; And o'er the vast profound he shoots on wings; The soul to distant regions steers her flight, And sails incumbent on inferior night: With vast celerity she shoots away, 60 And meets the regions of eternal day, To shine for ever in the heavenly birth, And leave the body here to rot on earth. The melancholy patriots round it wait, And mourn the royal hero's timeless fate. Disconsolate they move, a mournful band! In solemn pomp they march along the strand: The noble chief, interr'd in youthful bloom, Lies in the dreary regions of the tomb. Adown Augusta's pallid visage flow 70 The living pearls with unaffected woe: Disconsolate, hapless, see pale Britain mourn, Abandon'd isle! forsaken and forlorn With desperate hands her bleeding breast she beats; While o'er her, frowning, grim destruction threats. She mourns with heart-felt grief, she rends her hair, And fills with piercing cries the echoing air. Well mayst thou mourn thy patriot's timeless end, Thy Muse's patron, and thy merchant's friend! What heart shall pity thy full-flowing grief? 80 What hand now deign to give thy poor relief? To encourage arts, whose bounty now shall flow, And learned science to promote, bestow? Who now protect thee from the hostile frown, And to the injured just return his own? From usury and oppression who shall guard The helpless, and the threatening ruin ward? Alas! the truly noble Briton's gone, And left us here in ceaseless woe to moan! Impending desolation hangs around, 90 And ruin hovers o'er the trembling ground: The blooming spring droops her enamell'd head, Her glories wither, and her flowers all fade: The sprouting leaves already drop away; Languish the living herbs with pale decay: The bowing trees, see! o'er the blasted heath, Depending, bend beneath the weight of death: Wrapp'd in the expansive gloom, the lightnings play, Hoarse thunder mutters through the aerial way: All Nature feels the pangs, the storms renew, 100 And sprouts, with fatal haste, the baleful yew. Some power avert the threatening horrid weight, And, godlike, prop Britannia's sinking state! Minerva, hover o'er young George's soul; May sacred wisdom all his deeds control! Exalted grandeur in each action shine, His conduct all declare the youth divine! Methinks I see him shine a glorious star, Gentle in peace, but terrible in war!