LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR ROWLAND HILL, K.B.
HILL! whose high daring with renew'd success Hath cheer'd our tardy war, what time the cloud Of expectation, dark and comfortless,
Hung on the mountains; and yon factious crowd Blasphemed their country's valour, babbling loud! Then was thine arm reveal'd, to whose young might, By Toulon's leaguer'd wall, the fiercest bow'd; Whom Egypt honour'd, and the dubious fight Of sad Corunna's winter, and more bright Douro, and Talavera's gory bays;
Wise, modest, brave, in danger foremost found.So still, young warrior, may thy toil-earn'd praise, With England's love and England's honour crown`d, Gild with delight thy father's latter days!
SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD,
ON LORD GRENVILLE'S INSTALLATION AS CHANCELLOR.
YE viewless guardians of these sacred shades,
Dear dreams of early song, Aonian maids!—
And you, illustrious dead! whose spirits speak
In each warm flush that tints the student's cheek,
As, wearied with the world, he seeks again of better times and greater men;
If with pure worship we your steps pursue,
And youth, and health, and rest forget for you,
(Whom most we serve, to whom our lamp burns bright,
Through the long toils of not ingrateful night,)
Yet, yet be present.!-Let the worldly train
Mock our cheap joys, and hate our useless strain,
Intent on freighted wealth, or proud to rear
The fleece Iberian or the pamper'd steer;--
Let sterner science with unwearied eye
Explore the circling spheres and map the sky;
His long-drawn mole let lordly commerce scan,
And of his iron arch the rainbow span:
Yet, while, in burning characters imprest,
The poet's lesson stamps the youthful breast;
Bids the rapt boy o'er suffering virtue bleed,
Adore a brave or bless a gentle deed,
And in warm feeling from the storied page
Arise the saint, the hero, or the sage;
Such be our toil!-Nor doubt we to explore
The thorny maze of dialectic lore,
To climb the chariot of the gods, or scan
The secret workings of the soul of man ;
Upborne aloft on Plato's eagle flight,
Or the slow pinion of the Stagyrite.-
And, those gray spoils of Herculanean pride,
If aught of yet untasted sweets they hide;-
If Padua's sage be there, or art have power
To wake Menander from his secret bower.
Such be our toil!-Nor vain the labour proves,
Which Oxford honours, and which Grenville loves!
-On, eloquent and firm!-whose warning high
Rebuked the rising surge of anarchy,
When, like those brethren stars to seamen known,
In kindred splendour Pitt and Grenville shone ;—
On in thy glorious course! not yet the wave
Has ceased to lash the shore, nor storm forgot to rave.
Go on! and oh, while adverse factions raise
To thy pure worth involuntary praise;
While Gambia's swarthy tribes thy mercies bless,
And from thy counsels date their happiness;
Say, (for thine Isis yet recalls with pride
Thy youthful triumphs by her leafy side,)
Say, hast thou scorn'd, 'mid pomp, and wealth, and power,
The sober transports of a studious hour?-
No, statesman, no!-thy patriot fire was fed
From the warm embers of the mighty dead;
And thy strong spirit's patient grasp combined
The souls of ages in a single mind.—
-By arts like these, amidst a world of foes,
Eye of the earth, th' Athenian glory rose ;--
Thus last and best of Romans, Brutus shone ;-
Our Somers thus, and thus our Clarendon ;
Such Cobham was ;--such, Grenville, long be thou,
Our boast before,-our chief and champion now!-
EPITAPH ON A YOUNG NAVAL OFFICER.
DESIGNED FOR A TOMB IN A SEAPORT TOWN IN NORTH WALES.
SAILOR! if vigour nerve thy frame,
If to high deeds thy soul is strung,
Revere this stone that gives to fame.
The brave, the virtuous, and the young!-
For manly beauty deck'd his form,
His bright eye beam'd with mental power; Resistless as the winter storm,
Yet mild as summer's mildest shower.-
In war's hoarse rage, in ocean's strife,
For skill, for force, for mercy known;
Still prompt to shield a comrade's life,
And greatly careless of his own.—
Yet, youthful seaman, mourn not thou
The fate these artless lines recall:
No, Cambrian! no, be thine the vow,
Like him to live, like him to fall!
But, hast thou known a father's care,
Who sorrowing sent thee forth to sea; Pour'd for thy weal th' unceasing prayer, And thought the sleepless night on thee?-
Has e'er thy tender fancy flown,
When winds were strong and waves were high,
Where listening to the tempest's moan,
Thy sisters heaved the anxious sigh?
Or in the darkest hour of dread,
'Mid war's wild din, and ocean's swell, Hast mourn'd a hero brother dead,
And did that brother love thee well?
Then pity those whose sorrows flow
In vain o'er Shipley's empty grave !—
-Sailor, thou weep'st:-indulge thy woe;
Such tears will not disgrace the brave!--
[On the back of one of his early college exercises is written the following fragment on alchemy.]
So fares the sage, whose mystic labours try
The thorny path of fabled alchemy.
Time, toil, and prayer, to aid the work conspire,
And the keen jaws of dross-devouring fire.
In one dim pile discordant embers blaze,
And stars of adverse influence join their rays;
Till every rite perform'd, and labour sped,
When the clear furnace dawns with sacred red,
From forth the genial warmth and teeming mould,
The bright-wing'd radiance bursts of infant gold.
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