XXXV.
I too have known what ’tis to part
With the first inmate of my heart—
To feel the bonds of nature riven—
To witness o’er the glowing dawn,
The spring of youth, the fire of heaven,
The grave’s deep shadows drawn!
He sleeps not on the gory plain
The slumber of the brave—
Dear Victim of disease, and pain,
Where high Madeira’s summits reign
Far o’er the Atlantic wave,
He sought eluding health—in vain—
Health never lit his eye again,
He fills a foreign grave!
Oh, had he lived, his hand to-day
Had woven for the victor’s brow,
Such garland of immortal bay,
Such chaplet as the enraptured lay
Of genius may bestow!
Or,—since ’twas Heaven’s severer doom
To snatch him to an earlier tomb—
Would, Wellesley, would that he had died
Beneath thine eye and at thy side!
It would have lighten’d sorrow’s load,
Had thy applause on him bestow’d
The fame he loved in thee;
And rear’d his honoured tomb beside
Those of the gallant hearts who died,
Their kinsmen’s, friends’, and country’s pride,
In Talavera’s victory!
ODE
SUNG AT THE DINNER GIVEN BY THE GENTLEMEN FROM INDIA TO FIELD-MARSHAL THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, K.G. MONDAY, JULY 11, 1814.
I.
Victor of Assaye’s orient plain;—
Victor of all the fields of Spain;—
Victor of France’s despot reign;—
Thy task of glory done!
Welcome!—from dangers greatly dared;
From triumphs, with the vanquish’d shared;
From nations saved, and nations spared;
Unconquer’d Wellington!—
II.
Unconquer’d! yet thy honours claim
A nobler, than a Conqueror’s, name;—
At the red wreaths of guilty fame
Thy generous soul had blush’d:
The blood—the tears the world has shed—
The throngs of mourners—piles of dead—
The grief—the guilt—are on his head,
The Tyrant thou hast crush’d.
III.
Thine was the sword which Justice draws;
Thine was the pure and generous cause,
Of holy rites and human laws
The impious thrall to burst;
And thou wast destin’d for thy part!
The noblest mind, the firmest heart,
Artless—but in the warrior’s art—
And in that art, the first.