EPITAPHS.

I.

IN deep submission to the will above,

Yet with no common cause for human tears, This stone to the lost partner of his love,

And for his children lost, a mourner rears.

One fatal moment, one o'erwhelming doom,

Tore, threefold, from his heart the ties of earth: His Mary, Margaret, in their early bloom,

And HER who gave them life, and taught them worth.

Farewell, ye broken pillars of my fate!

My life's companion, and my two first-born! Yet while this silent stone I consecrate

To conjugal, paternal love forlorn,

O, may each passer-by the lesson learn,—
Which can alone the bleeding heart sustain
Where Friendship weeps at Virtue's funeral urn,—
That, to the pure in heart, To die is gain!

II.

He pointed out to others, and he trod
Himself, the path to virtue and to God;

The Christian's practice and the preacher's zeal
His life united many who have lost

Their friend, their pastor, mourn for him; but most

The hearts that knew him nearest, deepest, feel.

And yet, lamented spirit! we should ill

The sacred precepts of thy life fulfil,

Could we
thy mother and thy widowed wife-
Consign thy much-loved relics to the dust
Unsolaced by this high and holy trust-
There is another and a better life!

III.

Man! shouldst thou fill the proudest throne,
And have mightiest deeds enacted,
Thither, like steel to the magnet-stone,
Thou goest compelled — attracted!

The grave-stone-the amulet of trouble-
Makes love a phantom seem;

Calls glory but a bubble,

And life itself a dream.

The grave's a sealed letter,

That secrets will reveal

Of a next world, worse or better,—

---

And the gravestone is the seal!

But the seal shall not be broken,
Nor the letter's secrets read,
Till the last trump shall have spoken
To the living and the dead!

THE BRITISH GRENADIERS.

UPON the plains of Flanders,
Our fathers, long ago,
They fought like Alexanders

Beneath brave Marlborough !

And still, in fields of conquest,

Our valor bright has shone
With Wolfe and Abercrombie,
And Moore, and Wellington!

Our plumes have waved in combats
That ne'er shall be forgot,
Where many a mighty squadron
Reeled backward from our shot:

In charges with the bayonet
We lead our bold compeers,
But Frenchmen like to stay not
For the British Grenadiers!

Once boldly, at Vimiera,

They hoped to play their parts,
And sang fal-lira-lira,

To cheer their drooping hearts:
But, English, Scots and Paddy Whacks,
We gave three noble cheers,

And the French soon turned their backs

To the British Grenadiers!

At St. Sebastiano's

And Badajos's town,

Where, raging like volcanoes,

The shot and shells came down,

With courage never wincing,

We scaled the ramparts high,

And waved the British ensign

In glorious victory!

At Vimiera, the French ranks advanced singing; the British only cheered.-T. C.

And what could Bonaparté,
With all his cuirassiers,
At Waterloo, in battle do

With British Grenadiers?

Then ever sweet the drum shall beat
That march unto our ears,
Whose martial roll awakes the soul
Of British Grenadiers !

TRAFALGAR.

WHEN Frenchmen saw, with coward art,

The assassin shot of war

That piercéd Britain's noblest heart,
And quenched her brightest star,

Their shout was heard, they triumphed now,
Amidst the battle's roar,

And thought the British oak would bow,

Since Nelson was no more.

But fiercer flamed old England's pride,
And-mark the vengeance due!
"Down, down, insulting ship," she cried,
"To death, with all thy crew!

"So perish ye for Nelson's blood!
If deaths like thine can pay
For blood so brave, or ocean wave
Can wash that crime away!"

LINES WRITTEN IN SICKNESS.

O, DEATH! if there be quiet in thine arms,
And I must cease-gently, O, gently come
To me! and let my soul learn no alarms,

But strike me, ere a shriek can echo, dumb,
Senseless, and breathless! And thou, sickly life,
If the decree be writ that I must die,
Do thou be guilty of no needless strife,
Nor pull me downwards to mortality
When it were fitter I should take a flight

But whither? - Holy Pity! hear, O, hear! And lift me to some far-off skyey sphere, Where I may wander in celestial light:

Might it be so then would my spirit fear

To quit the things I have so loved when seen,-
The air, the pleasant sun, the summer green,-
Knowing how few would shed one kindly tear,
Or keep in mind that I had ever been?

LINES ON THE STATE OF GREECE,

OCCASIONED BY BEING PRESSED TO MAKE IT A SUBJECT OF POETRY,

IN Greece's cause the Muse, you deem,
Ought still to plead, persisting strong;
But feel you not 't is now a theme

That wakens thought too deep for song?

The Christian world has seen you, Greeks,
Heroic on your ramparts fall;

1827.