Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/38
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MARMION.
O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'd,The pride, he would not crush, restrain'd,Show'd their fierce zeal a worthier cause, 95And brought the freeman's arm, to aid the freeman's laws.
Had'st thou but lived, though stripp'd of power,A watchman on the lonely tower,Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,When fraud or danger were at hand; 100By thee, as by the beacon-light,Our pilots had kept course aright;As some proud column, though alone,Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne:Now is the stately column broke, 105The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,The trumpet's silver sound is still,The warder silent on the hill!
Oh, think, how to his latest day,When Death, just hovering, claim'd his prey, 110With Palinure's unalter'd mood,Firm at his dangerous post he stood;Each call for needful rest repell'd,With dying hand the rudder held,Till, in his fall, with fateful sway, 115The steerage of the realm gave way!Then, while on Britain's thousand plains,One unpolluted church remains,Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent aroundThe bloody tocsin's maddening sound, 120But still, upon the hallow'd day,Convoke the swains to praise and pray;While faith and civil peace are dear,Grace this cold marble with a tear,—He, who preserved them, Pitt, lies here! 125