XXI.

ON THE DEATH OF CADOGAN.- TICKELL

OF Marlborough's captains and Eugenio's friends,
The last, Cadogan, to the grave descends:

Low lies each hand, whence Blenheim's glory sprung,
The chiefs who conquer'd, and the bards who sung.
From his cold corse though every friend be fled,
Lo! envy waits, that lover of the dead:

Thus did she feign o'er Nassau's hearse to mourn;
Thus wept insidious Churchill o'er thy urn;

To blast the living, gave the dead their due,

And wreaths, herself had tainted, trimmed anew.

Thou, yet unnamed to fill his empty place,
And lead to war thy country's growing race,
Take every wish a British heart can frame,
Add palm to palm, and rise from fame to fame.

An hour must come, when thou shalt hear with rage Thyself traduced, and curse a thankless age:

Nor yet for this decline the generous strife,

These ills, brave man, shall quit thee with thy life;
Alive, though stained by every abject slave,
Secure of fame and justice in the grave.

Ah, no!--when once the mortal yields to fate,
The blast of fame's sweet trumpet sounds too late,
Too late to stay the spirit on its flight,

Or soothe the new inhabitant of light;

Who hears regardless, while fond man, distress'd,
Hangs on the absent, and laments the blest.

Farewell then, Fame, ill sought through fields and

blood,

Farewell, unfaithful promiser of good:

Thou music, warbling to the deafened ear!

Thou incense, wasted on the funeral bier!

Through life pursued in vain, by death obtained,

When asked, denied us, and when given, disdained.

AH, what avails thy lover's pious care?
His lavish incense clouds the sky in vain,
Nor wealth nor greatness was his idle prayer,
For thee alone he prayed, thee hoped to gain:

With thee I hoped to waste the pleasing day,
Till in thy arms an age of joy was past,
Then, old with love, insensibly decay,

And on thy bosom gently breathe my last.

I scorn the Lydian river's golden wave,

And all the vulgar charms of human life;

I only ask to live my Delia's slave,

And, when I long have served her, call her wife:

I only ask, of her I love possest,

To sink, o'ercome with bliss, in safe repose, To strain her yielding beauties to my breast, And kiss her wearied eye-lids till they close.

Attend, O Juno! with thy sober ear,

Attend, gay Venus, parent of desire;

This one fond wish if you refuse to hear,

Oh, let me with this sigh of love expire!