Dog him, waylay him, encompass him, stay him, And make him surrender!" My flower-beds splendid seem eyes blood-distended, I would forfeit most gladly wealth stolen so madly, Hence idle delusions! hence fears and confusions! Not a single friend's severance lessens men's reverence, No neighbour of rank quits my sumptuous banquets Without lauding their donor; Throughout the wide county I'm famed for my bounty, All hold me in honour. Let the dotard and craven by fear be enslaven. They have vanish'd! How fast fly these images ghastly, When in firm self-reliance, You determine on treating the brain's sickly cheating, With scorn and defiance! Ha ha! I am fearless henceforward and tearless, Shall sadden and darken-God help me!—hist-harken! 'Tis the shriek soul-appalling he utter'd when falling! By day thus affrighted, 'tis worse when benighted; With the clock's midnight boom, from the church on his tomb, There comes a sharp screaming too fearful for dreaming; Bone fingers unholy draw the foot curtains slowly, O God! how they stare at me, flare at me, glare at me, Those eyes of a Gorgon! Beneath the clothes sinking with shuddering shrinking, A mental orgasm and bodily spasm Convulse every organ. Nerves a thousand times stronger could bear it no longer. Grief, sickness, compunction, dismay in conjunction, Nights and days ghost-prolific, more grim and terrific Than judges and juries, Make the heart writhe and falter more than gibbet and halter. Arrest me, secure me, seize, handcuff, immure me! Quick-quick! Let me plunge in some dark-vaulted dun geon, Where, tho' tried and death-fated, I may not be baited By devils and furies! THE CONTRAST. [Written under Windsor Terrace, the day after the Funeral of George the Third.] I SAW him last on this Terrace proud, Walking in health and gladness, Begirt with his Court; and in all the crowd Not a single look of sadness. Bright was the sun, and the leaves were green, Blithely the birds were singing, The cymbal replied to the tambourine, And the bells were merrily ringing. I have stood with the crowd beside his bier, But every eye was dim with a tear, And the silence by sobs was broken. I have heard the earth on his coffin pour To the muffled drum's deep rolling, While the minute-gun with its solemn roar, The time since he walk'd in his glory thus, But to him a night unvaried. We have fought the fight;-from his lofty throne The foe of our land we have tumbled; And it gladden'd each eye, save his alone, For whom that foe we humbled. A daughter belov'd-a Queen-a son— |