ELEGY FOR THE KING OF THE GIPSIES, CHARLES LEE,
Who died in a tent near Lewes, August 16, 1832, aged 74. He was buried in St. Ann's Churchyard, in presence of a thousand spectators.
Hurrah!—hurrah!—pile up the mould:
The Sun will gild its sod:—
The Sun,—for threescore years and ten
The Gipsy's idol God!—
O'er field and fen,—by waste and wild,
He watch'd its glories rise,
To worship at that gorgeous shrine
The spirit of the skies.
No brick-built dwelling caged him in;
No lordly roof of stone;—
High o'er his couch the vault of Heaven
In star-bright splendour shone!
The rustling leaves still murmur'd there;
The rambling woodbine flower
Its twilight breath, exhal'd to cheer
The outcast's desert bower!
To him the forest's pathless depths
Their mossiest caves reveal'd;
To him, fair Nature's hand bequeath'd
Her fruits of flood and field;—
The flower,—the root,—the beast,—the bird,—
All living things, design'd
To feed the craving, or delight
The gaze of human kind!
The pencill'd wood-flower, fair and frail,—
The squirrel's cunning nest,—
The granite throne, with lichens wild,
In broidered vesture drest;—
Sweet violets bedded in their leaves,
The first soft pledge of Spring;—
Such were the gifts by Heaven's own hand
Shed on the Gipsy King!—
The snow-drop glistening in the wood,
The crowsfoot on the lea,
Their gold and silver coin pour'd forth
To store his treasury;
The springy moss, by fairies spread,
His velvet footcloth made;
His canopy shot up amid
The lime-tree's emerald shade.
Buck,—pheasant,—hare,—some lordly park
Still yielded to his feast;
And firing for his winter warmth,
And forage for his beast.
Happier than herald-blazoned Kings,
The monarch of the moor;—
He levied taxes from the rich,—
They wring them from the poor!
With glow-worm lamp, and incense cull'd
Fresh from the bean-fields breath;
And matin lark,—and vesper thrush,
And honey-hoarded heath;—
A throne beneath the forest-boughs,
Fann'd by the wild bird's wing;
Of all the potentates on earth,
Hail to the GIPSY KING!
Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
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