THE moon, reposing on yon pine tree tops,
With a soft radiance silvers all the copse;
Nor aught is heard above, nor aught below;
No flood to murmur, and no gale to blow;
But dove-wing'd Silence, hovering o'er the scene,
Sheds a mild grandeur and a dead serene.
Now, Fancy, loveliest of the cherubs! guide
To where old Thames surveys his Gothic pride;
There let me range the statue-glimmering pile,
Down the long horrors of the midnight aisle;
Join the sad band that clasp their Johnson's urn,
With Science, praise him; and with Virtue, mourn.
E'en there he lies! the greatest and the best;
By Genius flatter'd, and by Power caress'd;
His merits flown to Him from whom they came,
And all his honours shrunk into a name!
Yet fell he not by fortune's sudden rage,
But the slow waste of all consuming age;
And the same Heaven, that, in his well tried youth,
With misery's clouds o'erhung the paths of truth,
Bade his declining years from struggling cease,
In the smooth vale of competence and peace.
I How full of sadness was the morn that gave His mortal part for ever to the grave!
Can I forget the dismal night that gave
My soul's best part for ever to the grave.
Tickell on the Death of Addison.
With what deep awe the sable pomp roll'd slow, Through walks of gazers, and through streets of woe!
E'en dull Indifference melted at the view,
As Friendship took a long and last adieu;
While from the priest the solemn sentence falls,
That adds a guest to Britain's dearest walls ;
Mid chiefs, for arms; for justice, statesmen prized;
And bards, by him again immortalized!
But the lost sage, for whom his country mourns, A laurel, fairer than a bard's, adorns.
Why droops the sufferer his loved name to hear,
Eyes the faint babe, and sheds the desperate tear?
Is 't, that proud Genius hail'd him as his own?
Or Science placed him on her loftiest throne?
That Wit's keen breath the living line inspires,
And all the Muses warm with all their fires?-
In want himself, he wept a friend's distress;
His little still was charitably less;
And, ere a Johnson's appetite was fed,
A starving Savage shared the' untasted bread.
O Pity, parent of each bliss refined
Wealth can but sooth, not humanize, the mind;
Not the light graces of the dancer's bound,
Or soft Italia's magic-warbling sound,
Can bid the wounded heart forget to bleed,
Or pay the raptures of one generous deed.
In that dire hour, when Falsehood shrinks
with dread,
To see destruction tottering o'er her head,
Applauding Conscience breathed a sacred calm,
And Resignation shed her heavenly balm ;
Faith cheer'd his soul with brightest ray serene,
And wondering angels eyed the pious scene:
Till the freed spirit sought the bless'd abode,
And hardly trembled to behold his God!
Though he, the child of Virtue, be no more, Others inspired shall act his actions o'er; His last dread precepts ever shall survive, And Johnson's death shall teach the world to live; Till Sophistry with disappointment groan, To see a host of Christians spring from one.As some tall oak, that had for ages stood, The venerable shelter of the wood; His crops diminish'd, and his strength decay'd, His glories level'd, and destroy'd his shade, E'en from his fall a nobler purpose knows; And bears the thunder on his country's foes.
But thou, bright Saint! (if now thy blissful shade
Regard the sorrows which thyself hast made;)
Say, may a stranger's murmurs here below
Join the sad chorus of a nation's woe?
May he, with trembling feet, approach thy urn,
And whom he hoped to cherish dare to mourn ?-
What, though the Muse but vainly deck thy tomb,
With a gay chaplet's perishable bloom!
Yet shall fair Truth in lasting accents tell
Of him, who lived her champion, and who fell :
Her Johnson lost, his sacred memory keep;
For ever honour, and for ever weep.
FROM MURPHY'S POETICAL EPISTLE TO
DR. JOHNSON.
TRANSCENDENT Genius! whose prolific vein
Ne'er knew the frigid poet's toil and pain,
To whom Apollo opens all his store,
And every Muse presents her sacred lore,
Say, powerful Johnson, whence thy verse is
fraught
With so much grace, such energy of thought?
Whether thy Juvenal instructs the age
In chaster numbers, and new points his rage;
Or fair Irene sees, alas! too late,
Her innocence exchanged for guilty state;
Whate'er you write, in every golden line
Sublimity and elegance combine;
Thy nervous phrase impresses every soul,
While harmony gives rapture to the whole.
SEPULCHRAL VERSES ON DR. JOHNSON, BY THE RIGHT HON. HENRY FLOOD.
No need of Latin or of Greek to grace
Our Johnson's memory, or inscribe his grave; His native language claims this mournful space, To pay the immortality he gave.
En Emitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal.
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se?
THOUGH grief and fondness in my breast rebel,
When injured Thales bids the town farewell;
Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend,
I praise the hermit, but regret the friend,
Who now resolves, from vice and London far,
To breathe in distant fields a purer air;
And, fix'd on Cambria's solitary shore,
Give to Saint David one true Briton more.
For who would leave, unbribed, Hibernia's land,
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?
There none are swept by sudden fate away,
But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay:
Here malice, rapine, accident conspire,
And now a rabble rages, now a fire;
Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay,
And here the fell attorney prowls for prey;
Here falling houses thunder on your head,
And here a female atheist talks you dead.
By Thales some have understood Savage the poet, who took a journey into Wales after this poem was published.
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