University of Virginia Library

ON READING, SINCE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD'S DEATH, MR. BURKE'S LETTER REFLECTING ON HIS GRACE.

Such were the stern reproofs, illustrious shade!
That once to thee a warning voice conveyed;
Thus he, whose eloquence enchants the world,
Against thy head his powerful thunders hurled;
Thus thy bright path the modern Tully crossed,
The sorrowing parent in the statesman lost;
Thus he, whose praise thou hadst been proud to share,
To stop thy progress bade his lightnings glare.
But, had not death those lips in silence sealed
Which to the heart with magic force appealed,....
Had that afflicted genius lived to see
An anxious nation breathing prayers for thee,
And then beheld thee from the world removed,
When most deserving, and when most beloved,....
He would, forgetting all his anger past,
O'er thy fair fame his sheltering wings have cast;
No more thy ‘few and idle years’ have scorned,
But with thy praise his glowing page adorned,....
Nor thee ‘a poor rich man’ have dared to deem,
But owned him truly rich whom all esteem;....
No longer thought ‘derivative thy worth,’
But owned thy virtues nobler than thy birth.
And when his country's boast, thy honoured friend,
Whom rivals love, and even foes commend,
Rose in the senate, by thy worth inspired,
And dared to praise the virtues he admired;....
His, formed to mend and not mislead the heart,
The powers of Anthony without his art;
Not his the wish to gild a tyrant's crimes,
But make a patriot live to future times;....
The stern reprover of thy manly youth,
With answering sighs, had owned the picture's truth,
Had blessed the eloquence sublimely strong
That charmed to kindred woe the listening throng;
And when the eulogist, o'ercome with grief,
In tearful silence sought awhile relief,
He would the noble subject have pursued,
The fond regret, the votive sighs renewed;
And while he Friendship's bursting sorrow calmed,
Like her, in deathless words, thy name embalmed;
And as he deeply felt the parent's woe,
When forced a darling offspring to forgo,
Ordained to follow to the silent grave
The child whose virtues glowing transport gave,
To hear that precious child's expiring groan
Whose filial fondness should have soothed his own,
Doomed in his age in lonely grief to pine,
And mourn the blasted honour of his line,
Like some lone tree, his pale dejected form,
Bared of its branches by the wintry storm;
Not like the ruin, graceful in decay,
Which verdant ivy's sheltering wreaths array;....
He, as he sorrowed for thine early doom,
And saw in fancy thine untimely tomb,
Would, urged by mournful envy, thus have cried....
‘Blest were his parents! they before him died.’