DEATH OF JOHN EGERTON, ESQ. +
BY OSMUND BEAUVOIR, LL.D.
PERMIT, blest shade, the pious Muse to pay
This humble tribute of the mournful lay;
With artless grief thy hapless fate to mourn,
With widow'd cypress shade thy hallow'd urn;
With short-liv'd flowers to deck thy verdent grave!
What more can she bestow, or you receive?
Dark and perplex'd with many a various maze
Are heaven's decrees, and intricate its ways.
The gleam of hope, that dawns within the breast,
Soon is o'ercast; the rising joy supprest.
Superior virtue, like the comet's fires,
Breaks on the world, is gaz'd at, and retires.
+ Grandson of the Hon. Thomas Egerton, of Tatton Park, in Cheshire; he died Nov. 1740, Æt. 17.
"Twas thus amaz'd we saw the wondrous youth
Array'd with native innocence and truth,
Rise to revive fall'n Virtue's purer state;
And hail'd the omen of an happier fate.
'Twas thus amaz'd we saw the fatal dart
Baffle the pride of youth and power of art;
And snatch him ere the callow down began
His blooming cheeks to shade, and speak the man.
Had Heaven indulg'd a parent's fond desires,
Check'd the fierce fever, and recall'd its fires;
Till ripening time, with deepest knowlege fraught,
Had infant wisdom to perfection brought;
Albion with equal gladness and surprise
Had seen in him another ELLESMERE rise;
Seen him all-glorious in his country's cause
Direct her counsels, and defend her laws;
While sable crowds had on each accent hung,
And caught the precepts falling from his tongue!
When on the banks of Lethe's baleful flood,
Rome's future sons in mystic order stood,
A fate like this bade tender sorrows rise,
And tears prophetic veil'd Anchises' eyes:
The father's shade bewail'd Marcellus' doom,
And wept the loss of Cæsar, and of Rome.
See breathless there, a senseless lump of earth, That life of humour, and that soul of mirth! Where's now the wit, which flowing with such ease Could with just thought, and without satire, please?
Where is that chearful innocence? Where now
The smile that sat and play'd around that brow?
See there that form so pleasing once, so gay,
A loathsome heap of monumental clay!
'Tis this alone, blest youth, remains of thee;
"Tis this is all, the great, the good shall be.
Meanwhile the soul, exulting, unconfin'd,
"Bright emanation of th' all-knowing mind,"
Pure from the dregs of earth directs its flight,
And seeks the regions of eternal light;
Her powers enlarg'd, and faculties improv'd,
With holy wonder and amazement mov❜d,
Creation's ample field expatiates o'er,
Sees what dim reason shadow'd out before;
Orbs rise o'er orbs, and system system join,
To form th' Almighty's unexplor'd design!
Struck with the aweful scene, to him she pays
The grateful homage of unfeigned praise!
ON HIS RETURN FROM THE COUNTRY.
HILE thousand Muses incense bring,
From lawn, and hill, and winding vale,
To Summer's bright and glowing king,
On ev'ry balmy breathing gale;
To Thee a poor but faithful lay
By soft and smiling Friendship borne
One simple Muse has stol'n away,
To hail her Fred'rick's lov'd return.
Thy lov'd return!—and ah, what charm
More sweet could raptur'd Fancy see,
Than such a season smiling warm,
And such a faithful friend as Thee!
Thus, home whene'er thy footsteps bend,
The rural landscape seen no more,
Each blest return may smiles attend,
And Friendship lift the peaceful door.
And when the lyre, whose rural sound So oft has pleas'd thy willing ear,
Shall vain beneath the silent ground Woo sullen Death it's strains to hear! Perhaps thine heart may kindly turn On his cold clay who sleeps below; One plaintive sigh thy Poet mourn, One soft and tender tear-drop flow!
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