Poems by Bernard Barton :: :: University of Virginia Library

Farewell to the hopes which the nation has cherish'd!
To the visions of glory, now vanish'd in gloom!
To the prospects that dawn'd, and for ever have perish'd!
To the feelings we foster'd, now chill'd in their bloom!

The oak of our fathers, which once flourish'd proudly,
And struck deep its roots, and its branches spread wide;
Which listen'd unmov'd, when the tempest roar'd loudly,
No longer exults in its prosperous pride.

Its stem, struck by lightning, has long since been shiver'd;
All its earliest boughs of their beauty been shorn;
And fate's stern decree has to death now deliver'd
The last sapling shoot which wav'd bright in the morn!

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Not with lingering decline, or by gentle gradation,
Did its loveliness wither—its leaves drop away;
At sunset it seem'd all secure in its station,
And was torn from its stem ere the dawning of day!

But adieu to such images!—Ours is a sorrow,
Which can find in no image of fiction relief;
And the depth of its anguish forbids us to borrow
From the bard's brightest fancies a balm for our grief.

No! Charlotte, we need not be taught to deplore thee
By the poet's warm page, or the orator's arts;
For the high hopes of thousands, who now sorrow o'er thee,
Had long turn'd to thee in their innermost hearts.

There are those who, at seasons, with fond expectation,
To the future look'd forward; and fancied, in thee
Might yet be fulfill'd every wish of a nation,
Both generous and faithful, both loyal and free.

And well does each bosom's high-throbbing emotion
Refute the base cant of the sycophant slave,
Who would brand, as deficient in loyal devotion,
An empire which mourns o'er thy premature grave.

But it is not as Britons and patriots only
That we publicly grieve: other feelings must glow
In the hearts of the lovely, the lov'd, and the lonely;
And thoughts the most tender our nature can know.

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Oh! many a mother, but yesterday folding
Her lov'd infant close to her bosom with joy,
Believ'd with delight, her own cherub beholding,
That such would, ere long, be thy blissful employ.

But now! while the drops in her gentle eye glisten,
From the babe on her breast, for one moment forgot,
She looks silently up, with reluctance to listen
To the faltering tongue which relates thy sad lot.

Farewell! and when History, telling thy story
To Britons unborn, shall thy destiny speak,
They may turn from the record of grandeur and glory,
With a sigh in each heart, and a tear on each cheek.

And those of this age, while on earth they outlive thee,
Shall, deeply regretting thy too early doom,
With feelings of anguish that pure homage give thee
Which retires from the Throne, to repose on the Tomb!