WRITTEN BY THE HON. WILLIAM LAMB
Spoken by Mrs. JORDAN
ERE yet Suspense has still'd it's throbbing fear,
Or Melancholy wiped the grateful tear,
While e'en the miseries of a sinking state,
A monarch's danger, and a nation's fate,
Command not now your eyes with grief to flow,
Lost in a trembling mother's nearer woe;
What moral lay shall Poetry rehearse,
Or how shall Elocution pour
So sweetly, that its music shall repay
The loved illusion, which it drives away?
Mine is the task, to rigid custom due,
To me ungrateful, as 'tis harsh to you,
To mar the work the tragic scene has wrought,
To rouse the mind that broods in pensive thought,
To scare Reflection, which, in absent dreams,
Still lingers musing on the recent themes;
Attention, ere with contemplation tired,
To turn from all that pleased, from all that fired;
To weaken lessons strongly now imprest,
And chill the interest glowing in the breast-
Mine is the task; and be it mine to spare
The souls that pant, the griefs they see, to share ;
Let me with no unhallow'd jest deride
The sigh, that sweet Compassion owns with pride-
The sigh of Comfort, to Affliction dear,
That Kindness heaves, and Virtue loves to hear.
E'en gay Thalia will not now refuse
This gentle homage to her sister-muse.
O ye, who listen to the plaintive strain,
With strange enjoyment, and with rapturous pain, Who erst have felt the Stranger's lone despair, And Haller's settled, sad, remorseful care,
Does Rolla's pure affection less excite
The inexpressive anguish of delight?
Do Cora's fears, which beat without control,
With less solicitude engross the soul?
Ah, no! your minds with kindred zeal approve
Maternal feeling and heroic love.
You must approve where man exists below,
In temperate climes, or midst drear wastes of snow,
Or where the solar fires incessant flame,
Thy laws, all-powerful Nature, are the same:
Vainly the sophist boasts, he can explain
The causes of thy universal reign-
More vainly would his cold presumptuous art
Disprove thy general empire o'er the heart:
A voice proclaims thee, that we must believe,
A voice, that surely speaks not to deceive;
That voice poor Cora heard, and closely prest
Her darling infant to her fearful breast;
Distracted dared the bloody field to tread,
And sought Alonzo through the heaps of dead,
Eager to catch the music of his breath,
Though faltering in the agonies of death,
To touch his lips, though pale and cold, once more,
And clasp his bosom, though it stream'd with gore;
That voice too Rolla heard, and, greatly brave,
His Cora's dearest treasure died to save ;
Gave to the hopeless parent's arms her child,
Beheld her transports, and expiring smiled.
That voice we hear-Oh! be its will obey'd!
'Tis Valour's impulse, and 'tis Virtue's aid—
It prompts to all Benevolence admires,
To all that heav'nly Piety inspires,
To all that Praise repeats through lengthen'd years, That Honour sanctifies, and Time reveres.
SPOKEN AS A MONODY, AT THE THEATRE ROYAL IN DRURY LANE
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
COUNTESS SPENCER,
WHOSE APPROBATION ANd esteem wERE JUSTLY CONSIDERED BY
AS THE HIGHEST PANEGYRIC
HIS TALENTS OR CONDUCT COULD ACQUIRE, THIS IMPERFECT TRIBUTE TO HIS
IF dying excellence deserves a tear,
If fond remembrance still is cherish'd here,
Can we persist to bid your sorrows flow
For fabled suff'rers and delusive woe?
Or with quaint smiles dismiss the plaintive strain,
Point the quick jest-indulge the comic vein-
Ere yet to buried Roscius we assign
One kind regret-one tributary line!
His fame requires we act a tenderer part :
His memory claims the tear you gave his art!
The general voice, the meed of mournful verse,
The splendid sorrows that adorn'd his hearse,
The throng that mourn'd as their dead favourite pass'd,
The graced respect that claim'd him to the last,
While Shakespeare's image from its hallow'd base
Seem'd to prescribe the grave, and point the place,-
Nor these, nor all the sad regrets that flow
From fond fidelity's domestic woc,—
So much are Garrick's praise-so much his due-
As on this spot-one tear bestow'd by you.
Amid the arts which seek ingenuous fame,
Our toil attempts the most precarious claim!
To him, whose mimic pencil wins the prize,
Obedient Fame immortal wreaths supplies:
Whate'er of wonder Reynolds now may raise,
Raphael still boasts cotemporary praise :
Each dazzling light and gaudier bloom subdued,
With undiminish'd awe his works are view'd :
E'en Beauty's portrait wears a softer prime,
Touch'd by the tender hand of mellowing Time.
The patient Sculptor owns an humbler part,
A ruder toil, and more mechanic art;
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