And deep in anguish funk, on Stanhope's fate,
Begin to doubt their own immortal state.
But hold, my Mufe, thy mournful transport errs,
Hold here, and listen to Lucinda's tears,
While thy vain forrows echo to his tomb,
Behold a fight that ftrikes all forrow dumb:
Behold the partner of his cares and life,
Bright in her tears, and beautiful in grief.
Shall then in vain those streams of forrow flow,
Dreft up in all the elegance of woe?
And fhall the kind officious Mufe forbear
To answer figh for figh, and tell out tear for tear?
Oh! no; at fuch a melancholy scene,
The Poet echoes back her woes again.
Each weeping Mufe fhould minifter relief,
From all the moving eloquence of grief.
Each, like a Niobe, his fate bemoan,
Melt into tears, or harden into stone.
From dark obfcurity his virtues fave,
And, like pale fpectres, hover round his grave.
With them the marble shouid due measures keep,
Relent at every figh, at every accent weep.
Britannia mourn thy hero, nor refufe
To vent the fighs and forrows with the Muse:
Oh! let thy rifing groans load every wind,
Nor let one fluggish accent lag behind.
Thy heavy fate with justice to deplore,
Convey a gale of fighs from fhore to fhore.
And thou, her guardian angel, widely spread
Thy golden wings, and fhield the mighty dead.
Brood o'er his ashes, and illustrious dust,
And footh with care the venerable ghost.
To guard the nobler relicks, leave a while
The kind protection of thy favourite isle:
Around his filent tomb, thy ftation keep,
And, with thy fifter-angel, learn to weep.
Ye fons of Albion, o'er your patriot mourn,
And cool with streams of tears his facred urn.
His wondrous virtues, ftretch'd to distant shores,
Demand all Europe's tears, as well as yours.
Nature can't bring in every period forth,
A finish'd hero, of exalted worth,
Whofe godlike genius, towering and sublime,
Muft long lie ripening in the womb of time:
Before a Stanhope enters on the ftage,
The birth of years, and labour of an age.
In field, and council, born the palm to fhare,
His voice a fenate, as his fword a war:
And each illuftrious action of his life,
Confpire to form the patriot, and the chief:
On either fide, unite their blended rays,
And kindly mingle in a friendly blaze.
Stand out, and witnefs this, unhappy Spain, Lift up to view the mountains of thy flain: Tell how thy heroes yielded to their fear, When Stanhope rouz'd the thunder of the war: With what fierce tumults of fevere delight Th' impetuous hero plung'd into the fight. How he the dreadful front of death defac'd, Pour'd on the foe, and laid the battle waste.
Did not his arm the ranks of war deform,
And point the hovering tumult where to ftorm?
Did not his fword through legions cleave his way,
Break their dark fquadrons, and let in the day?
Did not he lead the terrible attack,
Push conqueft on, and bring her bleeding back?
Throw wide the fcenes of horror and despair,
The tide of conflict, and the ftream of war?
Bid yellow Tagus, who in triumph roll'd,
Till then his turbid tides of foaming gold,
Boaft his rich channels to the world no more,
Since all his glittering ftreams, and liquid ore,
Lie undistingufh'd in a flood of gore.
Bid his charg'd waves, and loaded billows fweep,
Thy flaughter'd thousands to the frighted deep.
Confefs, fair Albion, how the liftening throng
Dwelt on the moving accents of his tongue.
In the fage council feat him, and confefs
Thy arm in war, thy oracle in peace:
How here triumphant too, his nervous sense
Bore off the palm of manly eloquence:
The healing balm to Albion's wounds apply'd,
And charm'd united factions to his fide:
Fix'd on his fovereign's head the nodding crown,
And prop'd the tottering bafis of the throne,
Supported bravely all the nation's weight,
And flood the public Atlas of the state.
Sound the loud trumpet, let the folemn knell
Bid with due horror his great foul farewel.
Tune every martial inftrument with care,
At once wake all the harmony of war.
Let each fad hero in proceffion go,
And fwell the vast folemnity of woe.
Neglect the yew, the mournful cypress leave,
And with fresh laurels ftrew the warrior's grave.
There they shall rife, in honour of his name,
Grow green with victory, and bloom with fame.
Lo! from his azure throne, old father Thames
Sighs through his floods, and groans from all his streams:
O'er his full urn he droops his reverend head,
And finks down deeper in his oozy bed,
As the fad pomp proceeds along his fides,
O'ercharg'd with forrow, pant his heaving tides.
Low in his humid palace laid to mourn,
With ftreams of tears, the God fupplies his urn.
Within his channels he forgets to flow,
And pours o'er all his bounds the deluge of his woe.
But fee, my Mufe, if yet thy ravifh'd fight
Can bear that blaze, that rushing stream of light;
Where the great hero's difencumber'd foul,
Springs from the earth, to reach her native pole.
Boldly fhe quits th' abandon'd cafk of clay,
Freed from her chains, and towers th' æthereal way :
Soars o'er th' eternal funds of hail and fnow,
And leaves heaven's ftormy magazines below.
Thence through the vaft profound of heaven she flies,
And measures all the concave of the fkies:
Sees where the planetary worlds advance,
Orb above orb, and lead the starry dance.
Nor refts fhe there, but, with a bolder flight,
Explores the undiscover'd realms of light.
Where the fix'd orbs, to deck the fpangled pole,
In state around their gaudy axles roll.
Thence his afpiring courfe in triumph fteers,
Beyond the golden circles of the spheres ;
Into the heaven of heavens, the feat divine,
Where Nature never drew her mighty line.
A region that excludes all time and place,
And shuts creation from th' unbounded space:
Where the full tides of light in oceans flow,
And fee the fun ten thousand worlds below.
So far from our inferior orbs disjoin'd,
The tir'd imagination pants behind.
Then cease thy painful flight, nor venture more,
Where never Muse has stretch'd her wing before.
Thy pinions tempt immortal heights in vain,
That throw thee fluttering back to earth again.
On earth a while, bleft fhade, thy thoughts employ,
And steal one moment from eternal joy.
While there, in heaven, immortal fongs infpire
Thy golden ftrings, and tremble on the lyre,
Which raise to nobler strains th' angelic choir.
Look down with pity on a mortal's lays,
Who ftrives, in vain, to reach thy boundless praife:
Who with low verse profanes thy facred name,
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Loft in the spreading circle of thy fame.
Thy fame, which, like thyfelf, is mounted high,
Wide as thy heaven, and lofty as thy sky.
VOL. LII.
K
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