University of Virginia Library

26 Threnodia Augustalis

I. [Part I]

OVERTURE—A SOLEMN DIRGE

CHORUS
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below.

MAN SPEAKER
The praise attending pomp and power,
The incense given to kings,
Are but the trappings of an hour,
Mere transitory things!
The base bestow them; but the good agree
To spurn the venal gifts as flattery.
But when to pomp and power are joined
An equal dignity of mind;
When titles are the smallest claim;
When wealth and rank and noble blood,
But aid the power of doing good,
Then all their trophies last—and flattery turns to fame!
Blest spirit thou, whose fame, just born to bloom,
Shall spread and flourish from the tomb,
How hast thou left mankind for heaven!
Even now reproach and faction mourn,
And, wondering how their rage was born,
Request to be forgiven.
Alas! they never had thy hate:
Unmoved in conscious rectitude
Thy towering mind self-centred stood,
Nor wanted man's opinion to be great.
In vain, to charm thy ravished sight,
A thousand gifts would fortune send;
In vain, to drive thee from the right,
A thousand sorrows urged thy end:
Like some well-fashioned arch thy patience stood,
And purchased strength from its increasing load.
Pain met thee like a friend that set thee free;
Affliction still is virtue's opportunity!
Virtue on herself relying,
Every passion hushed to rest,
Loses every pain of dying
In the hopes of being blest.
Every added pang she suffers
Some increasing good bestows,
And every shock that malice offers
Only rocks her to repose.

SONG, BY A MAN
Virtue on herself relying,
Every passion hushed to rest,
Loses every pain of dying
In the hopes of being blessed.
Every added pang she suffers
Some increasing good bestows,
Every shock that malice offers
Only rocks her to repose.

WOMAN SPEAKER
Yet, ah! what terrors frowned upon her fate:
Death with its formidable band,
Fever and pain and pale consumptive care,
Determined took their stand.
Nor did the cruel ravagers design
To finish all their efforts at a blow;
But, mischievously slow,
They robbed the relic and defaced the shrine.
With unavailing grief,
Despairing of relief,
Her weeping children round
Beheld each hour
Death's growing power,
And trembled as he frowned.
As helpless friends who view from shore
The labouring ship and hear the tempest roar,
While winds and waves their wishes cross;
They stood, while hope and comfort fail,
Not to assist, but to bewail
The inevitable loss.
Relentless tyrant, at thy call
How do the good, the virtuous fall!
Truth, beauty, worth, and all that most engage,
But wake thy vengeance and provoke thy rage.

SONG, BY A MAN

MAN SPEAKER
Yet let that wisdom, urged by her example,
Teach us to estimate what all must suffer;
Let us prize death as the best gift of nature,
As a safe inn, where weary travellers,
When they have journeyed through a world of cares,
May put off life and be at rest for ever.
Groans, weeping friends, indeed, and gloomy sables
May oft distract us with their sad solemnity:
The preparation is the executioner.
Death, when unmasked, shows me a friendly face,
And is a terror only at a distance;
For as the line of life conducts me on
To Death's great court, the prospect seems more fair.
'Tis nature's kind retreat, that's always open
To take us in when we have drained the cup
Of life, or worn our days to wretchedness.
In that secure, serene retreat,
Where all the humble, all the great,
Promiscuously recline;
Where wildly huddled to the eye,
The beggar's pouch and prince's purple lie,
May every bliss be thine.
And ah! blest spirit, wheresoe'er thy flight,
Through rolling worlds or fields of liquid light,
May cherubs welcome their expected guest;
May saints with songs receive thee to their rest;
May peace that claimed while here thy warmest love,
May blissful, endless peace be thine above.

SONG, BY A WOMAN
Lovely, lasting Peace below,
Comforter of every woe,
Heavenly born and bred on high
To crown the favourites of the sky:
Lovely, lasting Peace, appear.
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden blessed,
And man contains it in his breast.

WOMAN SPEAKER
Our vows are heard! Long, long to mortal eyes,
Her soul was fitting to its kindred skies:
Celestial-like her bounty fell,
Where modest want and patient sorrow dwell.
Want passed for merit at her door,
Unseen the modest were supplied,
Her constant pity fed the poor,
Then only poor, indeed, the day she died.
And oh, for this! while sculpture decks thy shrine,
And art exhausts profusion round,
The tribute of a tear be mine,
A simple song, a sigh profound.
There Faith shall come, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the tomb that wraps thy clay;
And calm Religion shall repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
Truth, Fortitude and Friendship shall agree
To blend their virtues while they think of thee.

AIR. CHORUS
Let us, let all the world agree
To profit by resembling thee.

II. PART II

OVERTURE PASTORALE

MAN SPEAKER
Fast by that shore where Thames' translucent stream
Reflects new glories on his breast,
Where, splendid as the youthful poet's dream,
He forms a scene beyond Elysium blest;
Where sculptured elegance and native grace
Unite to stamp the beauties of the place;
While sweetly blending still are seen
The wavy lawn, the sloping green;
While novelty, with cautious cunning,
Through every maze of fancy running,
From China borrows aid to deck the scene;
There, sorrowing by the river's glassy bed,
Forlorn, a rural bard complained,
All whom Augusta's bounty fed,
All whom her clemency sustained.
The good old sire, unconscious of decay,
The modest matron, clad in homespun gray,
The military boy, the orphaned maid,
The shattered veteran, now first dismayed:
These sadly join beside the murmuring deep,
And, as they view the towers of Kew,
Call on their mistess, now no more, and weep.

CHORUS
Ye shady walks, ye waving greens,
Ye nodding towers, ye fairy scenes,
Let all your echoes now deplore
That she who formed your beauties is no more.

MAN SPEAKER
First of the train the patient rustic came,
Whose callous hand had formed the scene,
Bending at once with sorrow and with age,
With many a tear and many a sigh between:
‘And where,’ he cried, ‘shall now my babes have bread,
Or how shall age support its feeble fire?
No lord will take me now, my vigour fled,
Nor can my strength perform what they require;
Each grudging master keeps the labourer bare;
A sleek and idle race is all their care.
My noble mistress thought not so:
Her bounty, like the morning dew,
Unseen, though constant, used to flow;
And as my strength decayed, her bounty grew.’

WOMAN SPEAKER
In decent dress and coarsely clean,
The pious matron next was seen;
Clasped in her hand a godly book was borne,
By use and daily meditation worn;
That decent dress, this holy guide,
Augusta's care had well supplied.
‘And ah!’ she cries, all woe-begone,
‘What now remains for me?
Oh! where shall weeping want repair,
To ask for charity?
Too late in life for me to ask,
And shame prevents the deed,
And tardy, tardy are the times
To succour, should I need.
But all my wants, before I spoke,
Were to my mistress known;
She still relieved nor sought my praise,
Contented with her own.
But every day her name I'll bless,
My morning prayer, my evening song,
I'll praise her while my life shall last,
A life that cannot last me long.’

SONG, BY A WOMAN
Each day, each hour, her name I'll bless,
My morning and my evening song;
And when in death my vows shall cease,
My children shall the note prolong.

MAN SPEAKER
The hardy veteran after struck the sight,
Scarred, mangled, maimed in every part,
Lopped of his limbs in many a gallant fight,
In nought entire—except his heart.
Mute for a while and sullenly distressed,
At last the impetuous sorrow fired his breast.
‘Wild is the whirlwind rolling
O'er Afric's sandy plain,
And wild the tempest howling
Along the billowed main:
But every danger felt before,
The raging deep, the whirlwind's roar,
Less dreadful struck me with dismay
Than what I feel this fatal day.
Oh, let me fly a land that spurns the brave,
Oswego's dreary shores shall be my grave;
I'll seek that less inhospitable coast,
And lay my body where my limbs were lost.’

SONG, BY A MAN
Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield,
Shall crowd from Crecy's laurelled field,
To do thy memory right;
For thine and Britain's wrongs they feel,
Again they snatch the gleamy steel,
And wish the avenging fight.

WOMAN SPEAKER
In innocence and youth complaining,
Next appeared a lovely maid,
Affliction o'er each feature reigning,
Kindly came in beauty's aid;
Every grace that grief dispenses,
Every glance that warms the soul,
In sweet succession charmed the senses,
While pity harmonized the whole.
‘The garland of beauty’—'tis thus she would say—
‘No more shall my crook or my temples adorn;
I'll not wear a garland—Augusta's away—
I'll not wear a garland until she return.
But alas! that return I never shall see;
The echoes of Thames shall my sorrows proclaim;
There promised a lover to come—but, O me!
'Twas death, 'twas the death of my mistress that came.
But ever, for ever, her image shall last;
I'll strip all the spring of its earliest bloom;
On her grave shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the new-blossomed thorn shall whiten her tomb.’

SONG, BY A WOMAN

CHORUS
On the grave of Augusta this garland be placed;
We'll rifle the spring of its earliest bloom,
And there shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the tears of her country shall water her tomb.