What notes of hate and vengeance thrill
In Prussia's trumpet tone ?-
What yet remains ?-shall it be thine
To head the relics of thy line
In one dread effort more ?-
The Roman lore thy leisure loved,
And thou canst tell what fortune proved
That Chieftain, who, of yore,
Ambition's dizzy paths essay'd,
And with the gladiator's aid,
For empire enterprised-
He stood the cast his rashness play'd,
Left not the victims he had made,
Dug his red grave with his own blade,
And on the field he lost was laid,
Abhorr'd-but not despised.
ON THE DEATH OF HIS MAJESTY
GEORGE III (1820)
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
WARD of the law !-dread shadow of a king!
Whose realm had dwindled to one stately room;
Whose universe was gloom immersed in gloom,
Darkness as thick as life o'er life could fling,
Save haply for some feeble glimmering
Of faith and hope; if thou, by nature's doom,
Gently hast sunk into the quiet tomb,
Why should we bend in grief, to sorrow cling,
When thankfulness were best !-Fresh-flowing tears,
Or, where tears flow not, sigh succeeding sigh,
Yield to such after-thought the sole reply
Which justly it can claim. The nation hears
n this deep knell-silent for threescore years,
An unexampled voice of awful memory.
GEORGE IV (1820-1830).
THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON (1821)
WILD was the night, yet a wilder night
Hung around the soldier's pillow;
In his bosom there raged a fiercer fight
Than the fight on the wrathful billow.
A few fond mourners were kneeling by-
The few that his stern heart cherished;
They knew, by his glazed and unearthly eye.
That life had nearly perished.
They knew, by his awful and kingly look,
By the order hastily spoken,.
That he dreamed of days when the nations shook,
And the nations' hosts were broken.
He dreamed that the Frenchman's sword still slew,
Still triumphed the Frenchmen's “eagle ”;
And the struggling Austrian fled anew,
Like the hare before the beagle.
The bearded Russian he scourged again,
The Prussian's camp was routed ;
And again on the hills of haughty Spain
His mighty armies shouted.
Over Egypt's sand, over Alpine snows,
At the pyramids, at the mountain,
Where the wave of the lordly Danube flows,
And by the Italian fountain;
On the snowy cliffs, where mountain streams
Dash by the Switzer's dwelling,
He led again, in his dying dreams,
His hosts, the broad earth quelling.
Again Marengo's field was won,
And Jena's fierce-fought battle; Again the world was overrun,
Made pale at his cannons' rattle.
He died at the close of that darksome day-
A day that shall live in story;
In the rocky land they placed his clay,
And "left him alone with his glory."
THE LAY OF THE CHEESE (1825)
BY WILLIAM MACKWORTH PRAED
THE Pope, that pagan full of pride,
From whom Heaven may defend us,
Did lay one summer eventide,
A horrid plot to end us;
O'Connell came and talked his fill;
Sir Francis Burdett made a Bill;
And honest men felt great alarms,
Both for their faiths and for their farms,
Solid men of Cheshire !
We heard around the savage cries
Of men with ragged breeches,
Who practised the barbarities
Of making hay—and speeches ;
And Popish priests, disguised like Whigs,
Prepared to steal the Parson's pigs,
To overthrow the Church and steeple
And break the backs of upright people,
Solid men of Cheshire !
Then up the Heir Apparent got
Of Britain's wide dominion,
And said that Heaven and Earth should not
Demolish his opinion;
That Heirs Apparent were not meant
To listen to an argument,
And bringing Royal Dukes to reason,
He thought, was little short of treason-
Solid men of Cheshire.
And what rewards did men devise
For such a peroration,
Which saved their lives and liberties
From transubstantiation ?
A long address, filled full of beauties,
Expressive of their loves and duties;
And also a prodigous cheese,
As heavy as Sir Harcourt Lees-
Solid men of Cheshire.
Rank makes a virtue of a sin;
Small labour it would cost one
To prove that Peers a cheese may win,
As Esop's magpie lost one.
The Prince and pie perhaps inherit
A voice of nearly equal merit ;
A fox induced the bird to puke;
A lawyer bammed the Royal Duke—
Solid men of Cheshire.
Blest cheese," said girls in grogram vests, Rub off your rural shyness;
And feast his Royal Highness' guests,
And feast his Royal Highness.
'Tis thine to catch the sweets that slip
From Mr. Peel's melodious lip,
The Chancellor's Boeotian thunders,
And Blomfield's Eschylean blunders—
Solid men of Cheshire.
"The Parmesan upon the board
Shall tasteless seem before thee,
And many a spiritual lord
Shall breathe a blessing o'er thee;
A hallowed spot the shrine shall be,
Where'er a shrine is made for thee,
And none but Reverend Rats shall dare
To taste a single morsel there-
Solid men of Cheshire.
Alas the fatal sisters frowned
Upon the promised pleasure;
The creditors came darkly round,
And seized the pondrous treasure!
But yet to tease the Duke's distress,
They forwarded the long address,
Because-to strip the fact of feigning—
The paper was not worth detaining !
Solid men of Cheshire !
THE LONDON UNIVERSITY (1825)
BY WILLIAM MACKWORTH PRAED
YE Dons and ye doctors, ye Provosts and Proctors,
Who're paid to monopolize knowledge,
Come make opposition by voice and petition
To the radical infidel College;
Come put forth your powers in aid of the towers
Which boast of their Bishops and Martyrs
And arm all the terrors of privileged errors
Which live by the wax of their Charters.
Let Mackintosh battle with Canning and Vattel,
Let Brougham be a friend to the "niggers,"
Burdett cure the nation's misrepresentations,
And Hume cut a figure in figures;
But let them not babble of Greek to the rabble,
Nor teach the mechanics their letters;
The labouring classes were born to be asses,
And not to be aping their betters.
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