Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/40

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MARMION.
 With more than mortal powers endow'd,How high they soar'd above the crowd!Theirs was no common party race,Jostling by dark intrigue for place;Like fabled Gods, their mighty war 170Shook realms and nations in its jar;Beneath each banner proud to stand,Look'd up the noblest of the land,Till through the British world were knownThe names of Pitt and Fox alone. 175Spells of such force no wizard graveE'er framed in dark Thessalian cave,Though his could drain the ocean dry,And force the planets from the sky.These spells are spent, and, spent with these, 180The wine of life is on the lees.Genius, and taste, and talent gone,For ever tomb'd beneath the stone,Where—taming thought to human pride!-The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. 185Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,'Twill trickle to his rival's bier;O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,And Fox's shall the notes rebound.The solemn echo seems to cry,— 190'Here let their discord with them die.Speak not for those a separate doom,Whom Fate made Brothers in the tomb;But search the land of living men,Where wilt thou find their like agen?' 195
 Rest, ardent Spirits! till the criesOf dying Nature bid you rise;Not even your Britain's groans can pierceThe leaden silence of your hearse;Then, O, how impotent and vain 200This grateful tributary strain!Though not unmark'd from northern clime,Ye heard the Border Minstrel's rhyme:
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