[Page 42]

THE GRAVE OF HOWARD.

1 Spirit of Death! whose outstretched pennons dread
2 Wave o'er the world beneath their shadow spread;
3 Who darkly speedest on thy destined way,
4 Midst shrieks and cries, and sounds of dire dismay;
5 Spirit! behold thy victory! Assume
6 A form more terrible, an ampler plume;
7 For he, who wandered o'er the world alone,
8 Listening to Misery's universal moan;
9 He who, sustained by Virtue's arm sublime,
10 Tended the sick and poor from clime to clime,
11 Low in the dust is laid, thy noblest spoil!
12 And Mercy ceases from her awful toil!
13 'Twas where the pestilence at thy command
14 Arose to desolate the sickening land,
15 When many a mingled cry and dying prayer
16 Resounded to the listening midnight air,
17 When deep dismay heard not the frequent knell,
18 And the wan carcase festered as it fell:
19 'Twas there, with holy Virtue's awful mien,
20 Amid the sad sights of that fearful scene,
21 Calm he was found: the dews of death he dried;
22 He spoke of comfort to the poor that cried;
23 He watched the fading eye, the flagging breath,
24 Ere yet the languid sense was lost in death;[Page 43]
25 And with that look protecting angels wear,
26 Hung o'er the dismal couch of pale Despair!
27 Friend of mankind! thy righteous task is o'er;
28 The heart that throbbed with pity beats no more.
29 Around the limits of this rolling sphere,
30 Where'er the just and good thy tale shall hear,
31 A tear shall fall: alone, amidst the gloom
32 Of the still dungeon, his long sorrow's tomb,
33 The captive, mourning, o'er his chain shall bend,
34 To think the cold earth holds his only friend!
35 He who with labour draws his wasting breath
36 On the forsaken silent bed of death,
37 Remembering thy last look and anxious eye,
38 Shall gaze around, unvisited, and die.
39 Friend of mankind, farewell! These tears we shed —
40 So nature dictates — o'er thy earthly bed;
41 Yet we forget not, it was His high will,
42 Who saw thee Virtue's arduous task fulfil,
43 Thy spirit from its toil at last should rest: —
44 So wills thy God, and what He wills is best!
45 Thou hast encountered dark Disease's train,
46 Thou hast conversed with Poverty and Pain,
47 Thou hast beheld the dreariest forms of woe,
48 That through this mournful vale unfriended go;
49 And, pale with sympathy, hast paused to hear
50 The saddest plaints e'er told to human ear.
51 Go then, the task fulfilled, the trial o'er,
52 Where sickness, want, and pain are known no more!
53 How awful did thy lonely track appear,
54 Enlightening Misery's benighted sphere!
55 As when an angel all-serene goes forth
56 To still the raging tempest of the north,
57 The embattled clouds that hid the struggling day,
58 Slow from his face retire in dark array;[Page 44]
59 On the black waves, like promontories hung,
60 A light, as of the orient morn, is flung,
61 Till blue and level heaves the silent brine,
62 And the new-lighted rocks at distance shine;
63 Ev'n so didst thou go forth with cheering eye —
64 Before thy glance the shades of misery fly;
65 So didst thou hush the tempest, stilling wide
66 Of human woe the loud-lamenting tide.
67 Nor shall the spirit of those deeds expire,
68 As fades the feeble spark of vital fire,
69 But beam abroad, and cheer with lustre mild
70 Humanity's remotest prospects wild,
71 Till this frail orb shall from its sphere be hurled,
72 Till final ruin hush the murmuring world,
73 And all its sorrows, at the awful blast
74 Of the archangel's trump, be but as shadows past!
75 Relentless Time, that steals with silent tread,
76 Shall tear away the trophies of the dead.
77 Fame, on the pyramid's aspiring top,
78 With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop;
79 The feeble characters of Glory's hand
80 Shall perish, like the tracks upon the sand;
81 But not with these expire the sacred flame
82 Of Virtue, or the good man's honoured name.
83 Howard! it matters not, that far away
84 From Albion's peaceful shore thy bones decay:
85 Him it might please, by whose sustaining hand
86 Thy steps were led through many a distant land.
87 Thy long and last abode should there be found,
88 Where many a savage nation prowls around:
89 That Virtue from the hallowed spot might rise,
90 And, pointing to the finished sacrifice,
91 Teach to the roving Tartar's savage clan
92 Lessons of love, and higher aims of man. [Page 45]
93 The hoary chieftain, who thy tale shall hear,
94 Pale on thy grave shall drop his faltering spear;
95 The cold, unpitying Cossack thirst no more
96 To bathe his burning falchion deep in gore;
97 Relentless to the cry of carnage speed,
98 Or urge o'er gasping heaps his panting steed!
99 Nor vain the thought that fairer hence may rise
100 New views of life, and wider charities.
101 Far from the bleak Riphean mountains hoar,
102 From the cold Don, and Wolga's wandering shore,
103 From many a shady forest's lengthening tract,
104 From many a dark-descending cataract,
105 Succeeding tribes shall come, and o'er the place,
106 Where sleeps the general friend of human race,
107 Instruct their children what a debt they owe;
108 Speak of the man who trode the paths of woe;
109 Then bid them to their native woods depart,
110 With new-born virtue stirring in their heart.
111 When o'er the sounding Euxine's stormy tides
112 In hostile pomp the Turk's proud navy rides,
113 Bent on the frontiers of the Imperial Czar,
114 To pour the tempest of vindictive war;
115 If onward to those shores they haply steer,
116 Where, Howard, thy cold dust reposes near,
117 Whilst o'er the wave the silken pennants stream,
118 And seen far off the golden crescents gleam,
119 Amid the pomp of war, the swelling breast
120 Shall feel a still unwonted awe impressed,
121 And the relenting Pagan turn aside
122 To think — on yonder shore the Christian died!
123 But thou, O Briton! doomed perhaps to roam
124 An exile many a year and far from home,
125 If ever fortune thy lone footsteps leads
126 To the wild Nieper's banks, and whispering reeds,[Page 46]
127 O'er Howard's grave thou shalt impassioned bend,
128 As if to hold sad converse with a friend.
129 Whate'er thy fate upon this various scene,
130 Where'er thy weary pilgrimage hath been,
131 There shalt thou pause; and shutting from thy heart
132 Some vain regrets that oft unbidden start,
133 Think upon him to every lot resigned,
134 Who wept, who toiled, and perished for mankind.
135 For me, who musing, Howard, on thy fate,
136 These pensive strains at evening meditate,
137 I thank thee for the lessons thou hast taught
138 To mend my heart, or animate my thought.
139 I thank thee, Howard, for that awful view
140 Of life which thou hast drawn, most sad, most true.
141 Thou art no more! and the frail fading bloom
142 Of this poor offering dies upon thy tomb.
143 Beyond the transient sound of earthly praise
144 Thy virtues live, perhaps, in seraph's lays!
145 I, borne in thought, to the wild Nieper's wave,
146 Sigh to the reeds that whisper o'er thy grave.
24 The town of Cherson, on the Black Sea, where Howard the philanthropist died, is entirely supplied with fuel by reeds, of which there is an inexhaustible forest in the shallows of the Nieper. — Craven's Travels.

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Title (in Source Edition): THE GRAVE OF HOWARD.
Author: William Lisle Bowles
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Bowles, William Lisle, 1762-1850. The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. I. With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 9 North Bank Street..., 1855, pp. 42-46.  (Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

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