University of Virginia Library

Now night's dark mantle wraps departing day,
And smiling pleasure reassumes her sway;
To her on various altars incense burns,—
The song, the drama, now delight by turns;
Amusement's wand arrests the approach of sleep,
And her gay votaries laughing vigils keep.
But not for me are pleasure's glittering bowers;—
My pensive fancy flies to Woburn's towers!
There she beholds the sad funereal train
Steal with slow footsteps o'er the joyless plain;
The glaring torches, which but serve to show
In deeper gloom the awful pomp of woe;
The midnight mourners; and the honoured bier,
Gemmed as it moves by many a tender tear,
Which, from the house of death, at this late hour,
Gives to the grave one patriot Ruffell more.

O thou, deserving that exalted name!
Thou, the true heir of thy forefather's fame!
The Muse had scorned around thy living brow
To bid her sacred wreath of homage glow;
Her bosom owns a proud but generous fear
The servile flatterer's infamy to fhare:....
But, now the splendours of thy brow are veiled,
Now of thy cheek the radiant crimson's paled,
Now in thine ear applause must sound in vain,
Alike to that the foe's or flatterer's ftrain,—
To thee, lamented shade, the Muse shall raise
The ardent song of unsuspected praise;
Hers the soft pensive pleasure to impart,
The genuine feelings of no venal heart,
And with the honours that bedeck thy bier
Mix the pure incense of a soul sincere.
Yet hard the task:—While busy memory flies
To the great day when first thou mett'ft my eyes,
Oh! dreadful contrast! fancy's restless power
That moment paints thee in thy dying hour,
Till the sad scene my shuddering soul appalls,
And from my grasp the Muse's pencil falls.

But memory now regains her milder sway,—
Again she paints that joy-devoted day.
That glorious epoch every British breast
With proud commemorating ardour blessed;
For then we hailed a joyful century past
Since on our fhore great William anchor cast;
Since, while on James's brow pale terror sate,
Conscience revenged the martyred Ruffell's fate,
As in the breast of his desponding King
The aged Bedford fixed her torturing sting.
Bright was the scene:—Taste, beauty, blazed around,
And Holkham's palace vied with fairy ground;
Its generous Lord bade various joys prevail,
And crowds convened the glorious day to hail;
While the loved Mistress of the proud domain,—
She whom affection now deplores in vain,
She, formed to fhine in all the ties of life,
Dear as the friend, the mother and the wife,
But who, like thee, now fills an early grave,—
To all her matchless smile of welcome gave;
And, as she passed the splendid scenes along,
Seemed the mild sovereign of the beauteous throng.

There, while thy cheek with conscious triumph glowed,
I saw thee move, the idol of the crowd,—
Saw thee with manly graceful step advance
To lead the pleasing mazes of the dance.
But not the bright expression of thy face,
Nor thy commanding mien, thy youthful grace,
Alone, methought, to thee ensured the prize
Of eager homage from admiring eyes;—
No, that great day recalled still more the hour
When Ruffell fell beneath the arm of power;
And half the lustre that around thee glowed
Thy noble ancestor's renown bestowed:—
For, oh! what bosom fond of patriot fame
But has from childhood glowed at Ruffell's name!—
And ne'er could fancy's happiest skill design
A form more worthy of his mind than thine.

But, in another's worth if then thou fhone,
Soon England learned to prize thee for thine own.
As, when spring's reign approaches, to the sight
The sun by slow degrees imparts his light,
And on the eye with gradual lustre steals,
Ere he the fulness of his blaze reveals,
So on the public love thy virtues stole,—
So beamed the growing splendours of thy soul.
By thee each day to usefulness was vowed,
Thy time on seeking general good bestowed;
By thee allured, lo! Ceres blessed the plain,
And spread in richer waves the ripening grain,—
Improvement claimed the lately barren land,
Thou badst, where marfhes spread, rich fields expand,—
By thee led on, by thy example taught,
Lo! useful genius new inventions sought;
While still thy patriot aim all hearts confessed,
And thee e'en rival speculators blessed.

But, oh! how soon thy glorious course was run!
'Twas the short splendour of a winter's sun.
Ah! why ascends that anxious, general prayer?
Whence spring those murmuring groans, that loud despair?
From Woburn's walls the dread lamentings came;
Bedford, in prime of youth, rank, wealth, and fame,
Rich in the treasures of fraternal love,
In all the ties by generous friendship wove,
On a fond brother's beating bosom lies,
And (fatal blow to Britain's welfare) dies!!!

O patient sufferer, what a fate was thine!
Small is the trial, Being to resign,
When the faint victim, doomed to slow decay,
Through long, long years has felt strength steal away:
But when fate summoned thee to yield thy breath,
'Twas health resisting the strong grasp of death;
Upon thy cheek her lingering blush still shone,
On death bestowing beauty not its own.
Yet, wondrous pattern of consistent worth!
Though blest with all that binds the heart to earth,
And called, alas! to meet death's awful power
In gay security's unconscious hour,
Still, still to heaven's supreme decree resigned,
No weak complaints disgraced thy noble mind;
Thy soul unshrinking met the fearful strife,
And made thy death the rival of thy life;
For, though allured by all the world could give,
Thy bright example taught us how to live,
And, useful still, when fate's dread hour was nigh,
Thy bright example taught us how to die:—
The sense of pain, the dread of death above,
Thy firmness nought but others pangs could move;
And such his woe who now thy honours bears,
Ill could thy feeling heart resist his tears;
He, when opprest by love's severest grief,
In thy soft soothing converse found relief;
But, oh! who now his comforter fhall be?
Oh! who console him for the loss of thee?
Yet, from contemplating the honoured dead,
When that true mourner rears his drooping head,
This thought shall sooth his fond fraternal heart,
To his pale cheek shall triumph's glow impart:—
That not in solitary grief he mourned,
But sigh for sigh the wise and good returned.
That party spirit (dæmon most accurst!
Of all society's dread foes the worst!)
For Bedford's sake her bigot rage resigned,
And the loud grief, the general plaudit joined.

And ye, who praise of rank supreme deride,
Who, still for principle mistaking pride,
Believe all worth to private life confined,—
To noble rank unknown a noble mind;
Who think, as mists around the mountain's head
Upon its height a wider grandeur shed,
So fortune, station, and the boast of name,
And not his virtues, cause the great man's fame,—
For Bedford's sake your system once distrust,
And be to merit, though in ermine, just.
Reflect, howe'er the useful root ye prize
Which, dear to man, in earth's low bosom lies,
The tall palmetto, pride of India's plains,
A food as useful in its head contains,—
And, while with love you private goodness view,
Own splendid station boasts of virtue too.

Slight is his worth whom lowly rank secures
From each temptation which to vice allures,
(Though, still resolved to climb bright virtue's steeps,
Like mountain crabs, his onward way he keeps,)
To his compared, who, born in public life,
Must with allurement wage incessant strife.
Who can the lowly shrub's vast vigour prize,
Which storms from station, not from strength, defies?
But if there lives a man who, like the oak,
Must meet the thunder-storm's o'erwhelming stroke;
Who, born on public life's alarming heights,
Still by his eminence each blast invites,
But yet unhurt, though dangers round assail,
Can, like the forest's pride, resist the gale,—
Can, though temptation's lightnings round him spread,
Proud in uninjured grandeur rear his head;
Who, though his steps the courtier's train attends,
From flatterers turns, and opes his arms to friends;
Who, though to all the state's bright honours born,
Can aught but virtue view with manly scorn;
Like Jove's great son, who pleasure's lures defies,
And still for usefulness amusement flies;
On whom, designed for friendship's firmest tie,
Each heart that knows him hastens to rely;
Who, though well skilled each sage advice to give,
Delights from others counsel to receive,
Courting the endearing bond of mutual aid,—
That law by which e'en lifeless nature's swayed—
(For still the polar region's icy throne
Tempers the ardour of the torrid zone,
And in return swart Afric's burning sand
Gives welcome warmth to cheer the frozen land);
Who in his rank and wealth no bliss can find,
But as the means to benefit mankind;—
This noble being claims to praise a right;
He is the conqueror in an arduous fight;
Come! let us ransack Flora's fragrant stores,
And strew his honoured path with choicest flowers;
Around his brow—But, oh! heart-rending thought!
Cold is the breast with all these virtues fraught;
Our lays must seek a dull, unconscious ear,
Our votive flowers can only strew the bier!
For oh! the solemn grief that fills yon room,
Dependants, kindred, friends, enwrapt in gloom,
And he, whose tears despair forbids to flow,
Bent o'er the silent corse in speechless woe,
For the first time in anguish doomed to grieve
His generous brother tries not to relieve,—
Prove lost to us the matchless worth we prize!
For, cold in death, there noble Russell lies.
But, O mild sufferer! though while racked with pain
No selfish thoughts could thy attention gain,—
Though e'en in death, to others' interests vowed,
No care by thee was on thy pangs bestowed,—
Still, urged by lowliness, thy manly heart
O'erlooked one means instruction to impart;
Left one impressive moment unimproved
To aid the great utility it loved.

O wherefore wish, unfollowed, and unmourned,
To be in solitude and night inurned?—
That others might thy shining footsteps tread,
Fired by the glory round thy memory spread,
Thy friends, thy kindred, all who ever proved
The generous bounty of the worth they loved,
Should to thy grave have walked, a countless train,
The long procession blackening all the plain;
Should, in bright noon, in public view have past,
And o'er day's splendour solemn darkness cast.
To do thee honour, rustics, statesmen, peers,
Should o'er thy tomb have wept united tears;
Princes and peasants, friends and strangers there,
Have, joined by sorrow, wailed around thy bier;
The noble leaning on the low-born hind,
Forgot the proud distinctions of mankind;
Remembering only, in that humbling hour,
Their common friend, their father, lives no more;
And owning, bending o'er thy funeral pall,
That vast o'erwhelming sorrow levels all:—
While the fond parent, eager to impart
An useful lesson to his child's young heart,
As he beheld thee followed to the grave
By the illustrious great, wise, good, and brave,
Would have exclaimed, as they the mourners joined,
“So loved, expire the friends of human kind;
There see, my child, with emulative eyes,
How mourned, how honoured, public virtue dies!”
Till the young patriot vows, with glistening eye,
Like thee to live, that he like thee may die.—
But thou forbad'st this great, this useful sight:
Veiled in the silent shade of solemn night,
Thy dear remains were forced from friendship's grasp,
And fond affection's last convulsive clasp.

But ye who, wrapt in fruitless grief, deplore
The honoured worth that lives for you no more,
Wake from your trance, your Russell's tomb forgo;
Hark! consolation whispers peace to woe.
See, as you search life's varying scenes around,
Firm to the last in good how few are found!
Those who in youth appeared the boasts of fame
In age too often sink, the prey of shame;
Some bright temptation, stronger than the rest,
Has lured to vice the long-resisting breast,
The laurels blighted active virtue won,
And all the labours of a life undone;
All noble pride, all pure ambition lost,
Like spring s fair blossoms in one night of frost:—
Then joy to think, as forms in amber found
Nor touch can change, nor powerful pressure wound,
So Bedford's fame can now no injury feel,—
It rests secured by death's eternal seal.
From life's rough sea escaped, he gains the shore
Where vice allures and censure threats no more;
No rainbow splendours his, that fade away,—
His, the long lustre of a polar day;
To him on earth assured a deathless crown,
And his the glories of the world unknown!—
Think, too, while here the real patriot dwells,
His length of life by deeds, not years, he tells;—
Think, of his worth if endless proofs we meet,
However small, the circle is complete;
Think, thus distinguished by a nation's praise,
Bedford in youth expires, THE FULL OF DAYS.