 | The poetical remains |  |
The Star of Brunswick,
A POEM ON THE DEATH OF H.R.H. THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.
CANTO I.
DEDICATION.
To ye, fair maids, whose sorrow-tears will flow
When conning o'er an artless tale of woe,
Who wept with unfeigned grief for Charlotte's doom
(A lovely victim in an early tomb),
Who bless her memory, and will ne'er forget
That Brunswick's Star is now for ever set:
What though my hand strays feebly o'er each string,
Oh! deign to hear my harp's sad murmuring;
Then listen to the sounds of woe and pain,—
To ye I dedicate this slow and mournful strain.
When conning o'er an artless tale of woe,
Who wept with unfeigned grief for Charlotte's doom
(A lovely victim in an early tomb),
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That Brunswick's Star is now for ever set:
What though my hand strays feebly o'er each string,
Oh! deign to hear my harp's sad murmuring;
Then listen to the sounds of woe and pain,—
To ye I dedicate this slow and mournful strain.
I
The Star of Brunswick's quenched in endless night—The ray of glory's vanished from the heaven;
Though erst it streamed in radiant lustre bright,
A sparkling beauty in the mildest even!
But far behind the blackest clouds 'tis driven,
Shrouded in darkness, hid from mortal eyes,
Yet, when yon azure firmament is riven,
It then in tenfold lustre shall arise—
Brunswick's bright Star hid only for a season lies.
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II
Charlotte! the lines of virtue in thy faceWere writ so legible by God's own hand,
That not a mortal breathing but could trace
Thy deeds, woe soothing, generous and grand:
Thou truly wert the noblest in the land,
(If virtue is accounted noble now),
For thou with wisdom travelled hand-in-hand;
Thy title could not grace thee here, but thou
Gave lustre to the coronet that clasped thy brow.
III
Fondly we gazed upon the nation's gem(A brighter one ne'er graced Golconda's mine).
And ardent hoped Britannia's Diadem
Would round thy brows for many years entwine:
Thou wert the rising hope of all thy line,
The Nation's glory, Britain's Darling Child;
But oh! thy virtues, charms, were all too fine,
Thy feeling heart too tender and too mild,
To dwell in such a world, so stormy and so wild.
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IV
Who would have thought upon a scene like this,When thou wert cradled on thy mother's knee;
And marking thee through joys of youth and bliss,
Thy people such a sad reverse should see?
With holy raptures and true honest glee,
They'd vowed allegiance to such worth as thine;
Under thy sway the proud Isle of the Sea
Would certes lovelier beamed in splendour fine,
E'en though its glories now with such bright lustre shine.
V
Anticipation! thou art fled for ever,And the bright retrospect is all we find:
As when proud Britain's fleet the billows sever,
They leave a short but brilliant track behind.
Yet on such traces we may surely bind
The loveliest hope-flower that on earth e'er grew,
And wail that such a bud should be entwined
With the dark ringlets of the deadly yew,
For its expanding days were lovely but were few.
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VI
Charlotte! when hovering on the verge of time,And every hope was flitting quickly past;
Fading so sudden in thy opening prime,
Ne'er was the splendour of thy soul o'ercast:
While death stood by—while life itself did last,
Thou blessed thy Leopold with many a sigh,
With death-locked hands, thou clasped thy husband's fast,
And when speech was gone, thy speaking eye
Said, “See with what calm peace a Christian can die.”
VII
“Tell, tell my Leopold,” the Princess said,Ere yet the damp of death sat on her brow,
“Tell him, from me, his spirits must not fade,
For I'm the happiest wife in England now.”
Thus, the sweet sufferer, that he might not bow
In sorrow, uttered her love accents mild,
Soothing her partner that no tears might flow
For her keen pangs, and keener yet, and wild,
When to her Britain's heir appeared a lifeless child.
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VIII
Matrons of Britain, copy her pure mind,Be ye like her, and all her paths revere;
And ye, fair maidens, never will ye find
A mark more true, to guide your actions here;
Wail, wail her loss with many a heart-wrung tear,
An early blighted and a lovely flower;
And if ye in her footsteps persevere,
They'll aid ye sweetly in your dying hour,
Fear, on the death couch, will be stript of all his power.
IX
The scene is finished, and the curtain closed;Thus, many a cheerful prospect ends in woe;
The proudest structure where our hopes reposed,
May soon be dashed down by a fearful blow:
So lately every hope, with fervid glow,
Rose rapid, rapid, with increased delight;
But soon the lovely fabric was laid low,
And vanished sudden from our eager sight,
Wrapt in the dreary whirlwinds and the storms of night.
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X
And thou, high Scion of the stranger land,Say, to what home of peace canst thou now hie;
She bound thee here, with love's own silken band,
And was thine own—the apple of thine eye:
Say, where on earth must thou for solace fly?
From thee, the calm of soul was harshly driven.
To Claremont go—remembrance will rush by,
For the calm sunshine of a cloudless heaven
Is changed to all the horrors of a stormy even!
XI
Oh! she was thine, thou loved her as thy soul,And she returned thy tenderness and care;
Far round might ruin and destruction roll—
View Claremont, truest happiness was there.
Like Eden's garden, it was spotless fair,
Where ne'er a serpent entered, well I wis;
As our first parents, they did rapture share,
Ere they were driven from the bowers of bliss,
And took the last farewell of their own paradise.
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XII
Through the short calm of sweet connubial love,Retired from princely grandeur, pompous noise,
With wild ambition ye would never rove,
But dwelt with her who was thy only choice:
Ye tasted exquisitely the thrilling joys,
Which through the souls of faithful lovers swim:
But there's a counteracting power employs
Mysterious ways, which to us cruel seem,
And, Leopold, thy bliss was as a transient dream!
XIII
When kneeling down beside the bed of death,My God! how trembled thy high spirit then!
Ne'er so before, ne'er trembled thy full breath,
When standing nobly 'mid the shock of men:
And though in heat of battle placed again,
With sword in hand engaged in martial strife,
Though stretched in agony amid the slain,
And felt the deadly throes of ebbing life—
Those pangs are nought compared to parting with thy wife.
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XIV
Descending to the mansions of the dead,Thou poured thy sorrows to the midnight air;
And where the reliques of thy love were laid,
Thou stoodst the living image of despair!
That form before thee late so sweet and fair,
Deprived of motion, and bereft of breath.
The scene was striking! Oh, that love is rare,
Full of attachment, and the purest faith,
That pours its griefs e'en in the sleeping room of death!
XV
Thou'st won the love of every British heart,They've tried to cheer thee in affliction's hour;
But difficult the task is to impart
Strength to the bruised reed or broken flower;
Kings may sink down, and princes' fortunes lower
(But God forbid there should be new alarms);
If thou wert stript of titles, wealth, and power,
I'd then approach (thy worth my bosom warms),
And as a friend, a brother, clasp thee in my arms.
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XVI
He who hath aimed the blow alone can heal,And He will not forsake thee, Princely One:
And that loved angel will watch o'er thy weal,
Who hath so lately from thy presence gone.
And when in Claremont thou remain'st alone,
Thou'lt o'er departed pleasures sadly brood;
Yet that will give thy soul a calmer tone—
Like Charlotte, be the first in doing good,
And that will soothe thee in thy lonely solitude.
XVII
Farewell, my Prince, may time roll calmly past,'Till grief is mellowed by revolving years;
For neither mortal woes, nor pleasures last,
And human hopes are dashed by human fears;
When thy last step hath pressed this vale of tears,
Where thou hast seen thy hopes to ruin driven,
Amid the burst of light, from other spheres,
Oh! may a happy welcome then be given,
By her who is before thee in the bowers of heaven!
“In the first canto of the following little Poem I have endeavoured to express my feelings for the lamented death of the Princess Charlotte, and also have endeavoured to portray those of Prince Leopold, personages who, by their splendid virtues, would have adorned equally a cottage or a palace. In the second canto, I have equally, and with the same candour, expressed my feelings; if any warped my judgment, I must beg pardon, but the duty of the Poet is to ‘hold the mirror up to nature,’ and I do not think that my pen has been led much astray. The public will judge, and I trust with candour, and to its verdict I now submit”—Preface by the Author.
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CANTO II.
I
Unfit am I to wound a British soul,Unfit am I to trace ignoble deeds;
Yet albeit I mote well unveil the whole,
Though certes whilomwhile my bosom bleeds:
And who this sad and rueful story reads,
Deigns to refuse a sigh, a pitying tear,
Or shroud himself, I wot, in sable weeds;
For Charlotte was to every Briton dear—
Her worth was known, and sweetly dwelt on here.
II
Oh! may that day be never known in heaven,When high-born souls were separated, disjoined—
May the “Recording Angel's” leaf be riven,
Or else by some sweet seraph interlined!
And well I wis, that seraph sure may find
Some smooth excuse that to us is unknown;
A Prince's love is cold as northern wind—
But Providence will soothe that mother lone,
Who mourns her daughter's fate, and sadly weeps her own.
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III
I'm not beholden to a great man's power,And reckless am I of the courtly band,
The heaviest malisons may on me shower—
In Scottish phrase, I'll tell my tale aff hand;
Shame! shame! the highest head in all the land,
To bow so lowly in life's gloaming hour—
To spurn his better half was noble, grand!
Mayhap it was to please his princely power,
Mayhap to gratify some haughty paramour!
IV
Thus far I venture—I will not recede—A Scottish spirit was, and shall be free—
But oh! my Prince, our mountain bosoms bleed,
Though erst attuned to merriment and glee:
The nation's glory driven across the sea,
Thy bosom-partner through the world to roam!
Princess! an houseless wanderer thou canst be,
But what was stately palace, princely dome,
When thou wert far away from thy loved daughter's home?
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V
Say, did the climes of Italy sufficeTo calm thy soul when Charlotte was not by?
Could balmy gales, from where the myrtles rise,
Sweep the still tear-drop from thy lovely eye?
Methinks I hear that sad heart-rending cry,
When the rude messenger proclaimed the death
Of her thou lovedst—and not behold her die;
Or hear those sentiments of purest faith;
Or fold her in thy arms, and catch her parting breath.
VI
Though not unskilled in courtly lore, I mustProbe the deep gangrene of my country's wound.
Where, where, I say, in vilest living dust,
Could such cold-hearted apathy be found?
Not one relation was there seen around
The bed of death, save Leopold alone;
The Royal Uncles, with high feasting crowned,
Sat reckless of the heirship to the crown,
Although each goodly prospect might be overthrown.
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VII
Peace be to thee, my good, my worthy king(A shattered fragment of the olden school),
My Northern breast must still be murmuring,
When Southern chiefs spend time in sad misrule.
Deem not the indignant Bard, ye Chiefs, a fool,
Though in the world's broad path he's marked as such,
If willing he, some nobles would cry dool,
And writhe themselves beneath satiric clutch,
He'd wield Uriel's spear—expose them at the touch.
VIII
Charlotte was thine, thou lovedst her, Farmer George,Humble the title, but it was thine own;
Kings may take titles—kings may titles forge,
But mote, I say, thou well became thy throne:
Thy peaceful, rural attributes are gone—
A lonely stranger in thy lovely land!
But thou for nigh a century hath won
Thy lieges' love, for mild was thy command:
The sceptre never graced a truer, nobler hand.
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IX
Where was the highest female in the land?Where was the grandame in the trying hour?
Was it Apollion's, or God's command,
That bade her speed her way on such a tour?
Say, say, could eild grace festive hall or bower,
Or catch the joy-glance of a youthful eye,
While Britain's sweets were mingled with the sour?
It was a scene whereat I might say, Fye!
Muse on a lonely death-bed, wring my hands, and sigh!
X
Grandames are wont in our cold Northern clime,In place of fleeing (as it were) from harms,
To spare no hardship, no fatigue, no time,
To fly and catch the cherub in their arms:
Each aged heart with youthful pleasure warms,
They crack fu' couthily on promised bliss;
But Southern dames are cold to infant charms,
Else the great matron of our land, I wis,
Would ne'er give an example, cruel, such as this!
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XI
Indignant bursts the Spirit of the North,His trembling hand points to a misty cloud,
Noble his words, if I dare call them forth;
But what he breathed mote not be spoke aloud;
It was about a strange Egyptian shroud,
Wrapt round my Princess, hurried rapidly;
But wild ideas on my senses crowd—
I am confused; and yet I can't tell why,
For 'tis strange—a deep hid mystery.
XII
A mountain heart throbs wild within its plaid,And darts on yonder cloud his eagle eyes;
With manly step, short breath, and lofty head,
He trims his bonnet in a warlike guise;
And yet the cloud still hovers in the skies,
Although the Chieftain such a proud look wore!
He knows a foe behind the curtain lies,
Albeit he mote not eye his shield before,
He throws the gauntlet down, unsheathes his gude claymore.
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XIII
Sheathe, sheathe thy sword, my Highland Chief, my brother,It will be broken, or my chieftain fall;
I grant, I grant that never such another,
Could from its scabbard thy bright claymore call;
I know thou'dst thrown thy gauntlet to all—
But rest ye, rest ye on thy lovely isle,
Forbear from Highland feud, from Highland brawl,
Put up thy claymore, Chieftain, whilomwhile,
And smile—but well I know 'twill be a ghastly smile!
XIV
What now avails the deadliest human strife?—The race is over and the goal is won;
Oh! could that call the angel back to life,
How many swords would glitter in the sun!
Sweet innocent! thy race indeed is run,
And short but brilliant was thy swift career,
For it was ended e'er 'twas well begun—
Yet distant ages will bewail thee here,
And blend with Charlotte's name the heart-felt sigh and tear.
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XV
Poetic spirit! let no minstrel breatheUnhallowed accents o'er this tale of woe;
Oh! bid them bind their temples with a wreath
Of cypress, that the world their grief may know;
And cause their verse mellifluent to flow
For Charlotte and for Leopold alone;
Inspire each lofty British Bard to show
That the departed angel was their own;
For never purer gem could have adorned our Throne.
XVI
The wild bird's artless strain is closed, and nowHe wings his flight to yonder dark yew-tree;
Emblem of death! he'll perch upon thy bough,
And never more trill cheerful melody;
Mute, mute is all his merriment and glee,
On which his cheerful notes oft used to dwell;
But off this sombre bower he'll never flee,
His heart is bursting with a parting swell,
It soon will cease to beat—and now a last farewell.
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ELEGY.
Britannia! tear thy laurel leaf,
Untwine it frae thy bonny brow;
Filled is the measure o' thy grief,
Nae splendour will become thee now:
Bind on thy temples wreathes o' rue,
And mournful rest on Charlotte's tomb;
Bid Windsor Palace wave wi' yew,
And ceaseless wail her early doom.
Untwine it frae thy bonny brow;
Filled is the measure o' thy grief,
Nae splendour will become thee now:
Bind on thy temples wreathes o' rue,
And mournful rest on Charlotte's tomb;
Bid Windsor Palace wave wi' yew,
And ceaseless wail her early doom.
Blest wi' the husband o' thy choice,
Sweet Charlotte! happiness was thine;
Life then to thee was fu' o' joys,
A foretaste o' the bliss divine:
But Fate! why bind the eglantine
Wi' the dark blossoms o' the grave?
Why, why, the mournfu' wreath entwine,
And bid it over Charlotte wave?
Sweet Charlotte! happiness was thine;
Life then to thee was fu' o' joys,
A foretaste o' the bliss divine:
But Fate! why bind the eglantine
Wi' the dark blossoms o' the grave?
Why, why, the mournfu' wreath entwine,
And bid it over Charlotte wave?
When lingering on the verge of death,
Intent ye gazed upon thy love;
Grasped his warm hands to cheer his faith,
And never bade thy fond eyes rove:
Mildly they beamed and never strove
To stray frae him, but gazed their fill;
And when in death they ceased to move,
They pointed to the husband still.
Intent ye gazed upon thy love;
Grasped his warm hands to cheer his faith,
And never bade thy fond eyes rove:
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To stray frae him, but gazed their fill;
And when in death they ceased to move,
They pointed to the husband still.
Blest wi' the flush o' beauty's bloom,
A nation's pride, a nation's joy;
How soon to slumber in the tomb,
An' ilka rising hope destroy!
Restin' wi' thee's the bonny boy,
Who might hae wore the British crown;
Lately our hopes met no alloy,
But now a nation's glory's flown.
A nation's pride, a nation's joy;
How soon to slumber in the tomb,
An' ilka rising hope destroy!
Restin' wi' thee's the bonny boy,
Who might hae wore the British crown;
Lately our hopes met no alloy,
But now a nation's glory's flown.
Britannia! tear thy laurel leaf,
Untwine it frae thy bonny brow;
Filled is the measure o' thy grief,
Nae splendour will become thee now;
Bind on thy temples wreathes o' rue,
And mournful rest on Charlotte's tomb;
Bid Windsor Palace wave wi' yew,
And ceaseless wail her early doom.
Untwine it frae thy bonny brow;
Filled is the measure o' thy grief,
Nae splendour will become thee now;
Bind on thy temples wreathes o' rue,
And mournful rest on Charlotte's tomb;
Bid Windsor Palace wave wi' yew,
And ceaseless wail her early doom.
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