Like the cold poison of the asp will creep.
In thee, as in a cresset set on high,
The light of piety should shine far seen,
A guiding beacon fix’d for every eye:
Thus from the influence of an honour’d Queen,
As from its spring, should public good proceed,..
The peace of Heaven will be thy proper meed.
So should return that happy state of yore
When piety and joy went hand in hand;
The love which to his flock the shepherd bore,
The old observances which cheer’d the land,
The household prayers which, honouring God’s high name,
Kept the lamp trimm’d and fed the sacred flame.
Thus having spoke, away the Angel pass’d
With all his train, dissolving from the sight:
A transitory shadow overcast
The sudden void they left; all meaner light
Seeming like darkness to the eye which lost
The full effulgence of that heavenly host.
Eftsoon, in re-appearing light confess’d,
There stood another Minister of bliss,
With his own radiance clothed as with a vest.
One of the angelic company was this,
Who, guardians of the rising human race,
Alway in Heaven behold the Father’s face.
Somewhile he fix’d upon the royal Bride
A contemplative eye of thoughtful grief;
The trouble of that look benign implied
A sense of wrongs for which he sought relief,
And that Earth’s evils which go unredrest
May waken sorrow in an Angel’s breast.
I plead for babes and sucklings, he began,
Those who are now, and who are yet to be;
I plead for all the surest hopes of man,
The vital welfare of humanity:
Oh! let not bestial Ignorance maintain
Longer within the land her brutalizing reign.
O Lady, if some new-born babe should bless,
In answer to a nation’s prayers, thy love,
When thou, beholding it in tenderness,
The deepest, holiest joy of earth shalt prove,
In that the likeness of all infants see,
And call to mind that hour what now thou hear’st from me.
Then seeing infant man, that Lord of Earth,
Most weak and helpless of all breathing things,
Remember that as Nature makes at birth
No different law for Peasants or for Kings,
And at the end no difference may befall,
The “short parenthesis of life” is all.
But in that space, how wide may be their doom
Of honour or dishonour, good or ill!
From Nature’s hand like plastic clay they come,
To take from circumstance their woe or weal;
And as the form and pressure may be given,
They wither upon earth, or ripen there for Heaven.
Is it then fitting that one soul should pine
For lack of culture in this favour’d land?..
That spirits of capacity divine
Perish, like seeds upon the desert sand?..
That needful knowledge in this age of light
Should not by birth be every Briton’s right?
Little can private zeal effect alone;
The State must this state-malady redress;
For as of all the ways of life, but one...
The path of duty, leads to happiness,
So in their duty States must find at length
Their welfare, and their safety, and their strength.
This the first duty, carefully to train
The children in the way that they should go;
Then of the family of guilt and pain
How large a part were banish’d from below!
How would the people love with surest cause
Their country, and revere her venerable laws!
Is there, alas! within the human soul
An in-bred taint disposing it for ill?
More need that early culture should controul
And discipline by love the pliant will!
The heart of man is rich in all good seeds;
Neglected, it is choak’d with tares and noxious weeds.
He ceased, and sudden from some unseen throng
A choral peal arose and shook the hall;
As when ten thousand children with their song
Fill the resounding temple of Saint Paul;..
Scarce can the heart their powerful tones sustain;..
“Save, or we perish!” was the thrilling strain.
“Save, or we perish!” thrice the strain was sung
By unseen Souls innumerous hovering round,
And whilst the hall with their deep chorus rung,
The inmost heart was shaken with the sound:
I felt the refluent blood forsake my face,
And my knees trembled in that aweful place.
Anon two female forms before our view
Came side by side, a beauteous couplement:
The first a virgin clad in skiey blue;
Upward to Heaven her steadfast eyes were bent;
Her countenance an anxious meaning bore,
Yet such as might have made her loved the more.
This was that maiden, “sober, chaste, and wise,”
Who bringeth to all hearts their best delight:
“Though spoused, yet wanting wedlock’s solemnize;”
“Daughter of Coelia, and Speranza hight,”
I knew her well as one whose portraiture
In my dear Master’s verse for ever will endure.
Her sister too the same divinest page,
Taught me to know for that Charissa fair,
“Of goodly grace and comely personage,
Of wonderous beauty and of bounty rare,
Full of great love,” in whose most gentle mien
The charm of perfect womanhood were seen.
This lovely pair unroll’d before the throne
“Earth’s melancholy map,” whereon to sight
Two broad divisions at a glance were shown,..
The empires these of Darkness and of Light.
Well might the thoughtful bosom sigh to mark
How wide a portion of the map was dark.
Behold, Charissa cried, how large a space
Of Earth lies unredeem’d! Oh grief to think
That countless myriads of immortal race,
In error born, in ignorance must sink,
Train’d up in customs which corrupt the heart,
And following miserably the evil part!
Regard the expanded Orient, from the shores
Of scorch’d Arabia and the Persian sea,
To where the inhospitable Ocean roars
Against the rocks of frozen Tartary;
Look next at those Australian isles which lie
Thick as the stars that stud the wintry sky;
Then let thy mind contemplative survey
That spacious region where in elder time
Earth’s unremember’d conquerors held the sway;
And Science, trusting in her skill sublime,
With lore abstruse the sculptured walls o’erspread,
Its import now forgotten with the dead.
From Nile and Congo’s undiscover’d springs
To the four seas which gird the unhappy land,
Behold it left a prey to barbarous Kings,
The Robber, or the Trader’s ruthless hand;
Sinning and suffering, every where unblest,
Behold her wretched sons, oppressing and opprest!
To England is the Eastern empire given,
And hers the sceptre of the circling main;
Shall she not then diffuse the word of Heaven
Through all the regions of her trusted reig
n,..
Wage against evil things the hallow’d strife,
And sow with liberal hand the seeds of life!
By strenuous efforts in a rightful cause
Gloriously hath she surpass’d her ancient fame,
And won in arms the astonish’d World’s applause.
Yet may she win in peace a nobler name,
And Nations which now lie in error blind,
Hail her the Friend and Teacher of Mankind!
Oh! what a part were that, Speranza then
Exclaim’d, to act upon Earth’s ample stage!
Oh! what a name among the sons of men
To leave, which should endure from age to age!
And what a strength that ministry of good
Should find in love and human gratitude!
Speed thou the work, Redeemer of the World!
That the long miseries of mankind may cease!
Where’er the Red Cross banner is unfurl’d
There let it carry truth, and light, and peace!
Did not the Angels who announced thy birth
Proclaim it with the sound of Peace on Earth?
Bless thou this happy Island, that the stream
Of blessing far and wide from hence may flow!
Bless it that thus thy saving Mercy’s beam
Reflected hence may shine on all below!
THY KINGDOM COME! THY WILL BE DONE, O LORD!
AND BE THY HOLY NAME THROUGH ALL THE WORLD ADORED!
Thus as Speranza cried she clasp’d her hands,
And heavenward lifted them in ardent prayer.
Lo! at the act the vaulted roof expands,..
Heaven opens,.. and in empyreal air
Pouring its splendours through the inferior sky,
More bright than noon-day suns the Cross appears on high.
A strain of heavenly harmony ensued,
Such as but once to mortal ears was known,..
The voice of that Angelic Multitude
Who in their Orders stand around the Throne;
PEACE UPON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN! they sung,
And Heaven and Earth with that prophetic anthem rung.
In holy fear I fell upon the ground,
And hid my face, unable to endure
The glory, or sustain the piercing sound:
In fear and yet in trembling joy, for sure
My soul that hour yearn’d strongly to be free,
That it might spread its wings in immortality.
Gone was the glory when I raised my head,
But in the air appear’d a form half-seen,
Below with shadows dimly garmented,
And indistinct and dreadful was his mien:
Yet when I gazed intentlier, I could trace
Divinest beauty in that aweful face.
Hear me, O Princess! said the shadowy form,
As in administering this mighty land
Thou with thy best endeavour shalt perform
The will of Heaven, so shall my faithful hand
Thy great and endless recompence supply;..
My name is DEATH: THE LAST BEST FRIEND AM I!
Carmen Nuptiale. Epilogue.
Is this the Nuptial Song? with brow severe
Perchance the votaries of the world will say:
Are these fit strains for Royal ears to hear?
What man is he who thus assorts his lay,
And dares pronounce with inauspicious breath,
In Hymeneal verse, the name of Death?
Remote from chearful intercourse of men,
Hath he indulged his melancholy mood,
And like the hermit in some sullen den,
Fed his distemper’d mind in solitude?
Or have fanatic dreams distraught his sense,
That thus he should presume with bold irreverence?
O Royal Lady, ill they judge the heart
That reverently approaches thee to-day,
And anxious to perform its fitting part,
Prefers the tribute of this duteous lay!
Not with displeasure should his song be read
Who prays for Heaven’s best blessings on thy head.
He prays that many a year may pass away
Ere the State call thee from a life of love;
Vex’d by no public cares, that day by day
Thy heart the dear domestic joys may prove,
And gracious Heaven thy chosen nuptials bless
With all a Wife’s and all a Mother’s happiness.
He prays, that for thine own and England’s sake,
The Virtues and the Household Charities
Their favour’d seat beside thy hearth may take;
That when the Nation thither turn their eyes,
There the conspicuous model they may find
Of all which makes the bliss of human-kind.
He prays, that when the sceptre to thy hand
In due succession shall descend at length,
Prosperity and Peace may bless the Land,
Truth be thy counsellor, and Heaven thy strength;
That every tongue thy praises may proclaim,
And every heart in secret bless thy name.
He prays, that thou mayest strenuously maintain
The wise laws handed down from sire to son;
He prays, that under thy auspicious reign
All may be added which is left undone,
To make the realm, its polity compleat,
In all things happy, as in all things great:
That through the will of thy enlighten’d mind,
Brute man may be to social life reclaim’d;
That in compassion for forlorn mankind,
The saving Faith may widely be proclaim’d
Through erring lands, beneath thy fostering care;..
This is his ardent hope, his loyal prayer.
In every cottage may thy power be blest,
For blessings which should every where abound;
Thy will beneficent from East to West
May bring forth good where’er the sun goes round;
And thus through future times should CHARLOTTE’S fame
Surpass our great ELIZA’S golden name.
Of aweful subjects have I dared to sing,
Yet surely are they such, as view’d aright,
Contentment to thy better mind may bring;
A strain which haply may thy heart invite
To ponder well, how to thy choice is given
A glorious name on Earth, a high reward in Heaven.
Light strains, though chearful as the hues of spring,
Would wither like a wreath of vernal flowers;
The amaranthine garland which I bring
Shall keep its verdure through all after hours;..
Yea, while the Poet’s name is doom’d to live,
So long this garland shall its fragrance give.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown;”
Thus said the Bard who spake of kingly cares:
But calmly may the Sovereign then lie down
When grateful Nations guard him with their prayers:
How sweet a sleep awaits the Royal head,
When these keep watch and ward around the bed!
Carmen Nuptiale. L’envoy.
Go, little Book, from this my solitude,
I cast thee on the waters:.. go thy ways!
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
The World will find thee after many days.
Be it with thee according to thy worth:..
Go, little Book! in faith I send thee forth.
FUNERAL SONG FOR THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (1796-1817) was the only child of George, Prince of Wales (later to become King George IV) and Caroline of Brunswick. Had she outlived her father and her grandfather, King George III, she would have become Queen of the United Kingdom. Tragically, after a year and a half of happy marriage to King Leopold I
of Belgium, Charlotte died giving birth to a stillborn son. Her death set off tremendous mourning among the British, who had viewed her as a sign of hope and a contrast both to her unpopular father and to her grandfather, who many saw as a mad man. As she had been King George III’s only legitimate grandchild, there was considerable pressure on the King’s unwed sons to marry. King George III’s fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent, fathered the eventual heir, Queen Victoria.
Southey’s funeral ode was composed shortly after the Princess’ death in 1817 and the poem displays the typical depth of grief felt by the public following Princess Charlotte’s untimely death.
Princess Charlotte of Wales, painted shortly before her death
The funeral procession
Funeral Ode for the Death of the Princess Charlotte
IN its summer pride array’d,
Low our Tree of Hope is laid!
Low it lies:.. in evil hour,
Visiting the bridal bower,
Death hath levell’d root and flower.
Windsor, in thy sacred shade,
(This the end of pomp and power!)
Have the rites of death been paid:
Windsor, in thy sacred shade
Is the Flower of Brunswick laid!
Ye whose relics rest around,
Tenants of this funeral ground!
Know ye, Spirits, who is come,
By immitigable doom
Summon’d to the untimely tomb?
Late with youth and splendour crown’d,
Late in beauty’s vernal bloom,
Late with love and joyaunce blest;
Never more lamented guest
Was in Windsor laid to rest.
Henry, thou of saintly worth,
Thou, to whom thy Windsor gave
Nativity and name, and grave;
Thou art in this hallowed earth
Cradled for the immortal birth!
Heavily upon his head
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 187