A MONODY On the Death of Queen CAROLINE.
By Richard West, Esq; Son to the Chancellor of Ireland, and Grandson to Bishop Burnet.
I.
Sing we no more of Hymeneal lays,
Nor strew the land with myrtles and with bays:
The voice of joy is fled the British shore,
For Caroline's no more:
And now our sorrows ask a sadder string;
Come, plaintive goddess of the Cyrrhan spring,
Pour thy deep note, and shed thy tuneful tear,
And, while we lose the memory of pain
In thy oblivious strain,
—Ah! drop thy cypress on yon mournful bier!
Begin: nor more delay
The sacred meed of gratitude to pay:
Begin: whate'er immortal song can do,
To the dear name of Caroline is due:
Who loves the Muse, deserves the Muse's love:
Then raise thy numbers high,
Sound out her glory to the throne of Jove,
Spread the glad voice thro' all the ambient sky,
From the dull marble vindicate her praise,
And waft it down to lighten future days.
II.
Ye bards to come, the song of truth attend:
This, this is she, the Muse's judge and friend!
The royal female! whose benignant hand
Throughout fair Albion's land
Dealt every useful, every decent part,
Each Memphian science, and each Attick art:
Within the Muse's bower
She oft was wont to lose the vacant hour,
Or underneath the sapient grot reclin'd,
Her soul to contemplation she resign'd,
And for awhile laid down
The painful, envied burthen of a crown:
Mean time thy rural ditty was not mute,
Sweet bard of Merlin's cave!
Tho' rude, thy ditty was of her, who gave
Thy voice to sing, and tun'd thy oaten flute
In strains unwonted to the ear of swain:
As when the lark, ambitious of the skies,
Quits the low harvest of the golden plain,
Taught by the sun's inspiring warmth to rise,
Sublime in air he spreads his dappled wings,
Mounts the blue æther, and in mounting sings.
III.
But whither wanders the licentious song?
Such joyous notes to happier days belong!
Ah me! our happier days are now no more:—
Return, sad Muse: see pale Britannia weep,
See all the sisters of the subject deep
Their sovereign's loss deplore!
See fond Ierne gives her sorrows vent,
And as she tunes her brazen lyre to woe,
Indulge her grief to flow!—
See even the northern Orcades lament!
Nor ends the wailing here:
Where-e'er beneath our flag wild Ocean roars,
From farthest Orient to Hesperia's shores,
From torrid Affrick to the world's cold end,
The British woes extend:
And every colony has dropt a tear.
IV.
O honour'd flood! with reeds Pierian crown'd,
Isis! whose argent waters glide along
Fair Bellosite's Lycæan shades renown'd,
Now aid my feeble song;
And call thy chosen sons, and bid them bring
Their lays of Dorick air,
With lenient sounds to steal awhile from care
Th'inconsolable King:
O! sooth his anguish, and compose his pains
With artful unimaginable strains,
According sweetly to the golden lyre,
Such as might half inspire
The iron breast of Hades to resign
Our lost, lov'd Caroline.
V.
These are thy glorious deeds, almighty Death!
These are thy triumphs o'er the sons of men,
That now receive the miserable breath,
Which the next moment they resign again!
Ah me! what boots us all our boasted power,
Our golden treasure, and our purpled state?
They cannot ward th'inevitable hour,
Nor stay the fearful violence of Fate:
—Virtue herself shall sail:
Else now, if virtue ever could prevail,
Death had not dar'd to violate the throne,
Nor had Britannia heard her sovereign groan.
—Ye nymphs! recall the song:
For heaven-born virtue does to heaven belong,
And scorns the meanest of her sons should die,
But opens him a passage to the sky;
Her rod ay-pointing to th'eternal goal,
From the brute earth she frees the ardent soul;
Swift from the vulgar herd aloft she springs,
Spurns the moist clay, and soars on azure wings.
VI.
Then hence with sorrows vain:
Ye Theban Muses! elevate the strain:
Search o'er the records of immortal fame,
And high refulgent on the female line,
Imblaze in starry characters the name
Of British Caroline:
While sacred story rings with Sheba's praise,
While Berenice's virtues still inspire
The Cyrenean lyre,
And Gloriana blooms in Spenser's lays;
Thy name, great Queen, shall glow in every page,
Shall dwell in every clime, and live in every age.
When George shall go, where William went before,
And all the present world shall be no more;
When the fond factions of unjust mankind,
The mean, the mad, the envious, and the blind,
Shall turn to worms and dust;
Then Time, impartial judge, that states the price
Of each man's virtue, and of each man's vice,
From thy bright fame shall clear the cank'ring rust;
And O! the Muses ever shall be just.
VII.
But lo! what sudden radiance gilds the skies?
'Tis Gratitude descending from above,
Known by the sweetness of her dove-like eyes,
Daughter of truth and universal love!
To Henry's sacred dome she wafts along,
And on thy tomb she pours
Celestial sweets and aramanthine flowers:
The old, the young, the rich, the wretched crowd
Numerous around her, and with accents loud
Raise the mix'd voice, and pour the grateful song:
“Hail Queen adorn'd by nature and by art!
“Thine was each virtue of the head and heart;
“Thy people blest thee, and thy children lov'd,
“And thy King honour'd, and thy God approv'd,”
VIII.
But here my labours cease:
'Tis time the foaming courser to release.
And thou, O royal shade,
Forgive the Muse that these vain honours paid;
A Muse as yet unheeded and unknown;
That dares to sacrifice to truth alone,
Not prone to blame, not hasty to commend.
No foe unjust, no mercenary friend,
No sensual bosom, no ungenerous mind,
And tho' not virtuous, virtuously inclin'd.
