No More Learning

For them is Sorrow's purest sigh
O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,
All earth becomes their monument!

3.

A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue:
The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong.

4.

For them the voice of festal mirth
Grows hushed, _their name_ the only sound;
While deep Remembrance pours to Worth
The goblet's tributary round.

5.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,
Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?

6.

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be;
And early valour, glowing, find
A model in thy memory.

7.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee
In woe, that glory cannot quell;
And shuddering hear of victory,
Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

8.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less?
When cease to hear thy cherished name?
Time cannot teach forgetfulness,
While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame.

9.

Alas! for them, though not for thee,
They cannot choose but weep the more;
Deep for the dead the grief must be,
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

_October_ 7, 1814.
[First published, _Morning Chronicle_, October 7, 1814. ]



JULIAN [A FRAGMENT]. [314]

1.

The Night came on the Waters--all was rest
On Earth--but Rage on Ocean's troubled Heart.
The Waves arose and rolled beneath the blast;
The Sailors gazed upon their shivered Mast.
In that dark Hour a long loud gathered cry
From out the billows pierced the sable sky,
And borne o'er breakers reached the craggy shore--
The Sea roars on--that Cry is heard no more.

2.

There is no vestige, in the Dawning light,
Of those that shrieked thro' shadows of the Night.
The Bark--the Crew--the very Wreck is gone,
Marred--mutilated--traceless--all save one.
In him there still is Life, the Wave that dashed
On shore the plank to which his form was lashed,
Returned unheeding of its helpless Prey--
The lone survivor of that Yesterday--
The one of Many whom the withering Gale
Hath left unpunished to record their Tale.