Chapter XIV: Preface (14)

O think, how to his latest day, When Death, just hovering, claim'd his prey, With 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 The steerage of the realm gave way. Then--while on Britain's thousand plains One polluted church remains, Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around The bloody tocsin's maddening sound, But 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!

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh, Because his rival slumbers nigh; Nor be thy Requiescat dumb Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb. For talents mourn, untimely lost, When best employ'd, and wanted most; Mourn genius high, and lore profound, And wit that loved to play, not wound; And all the reasoning powers divine To penetrate, resolve, combine; And feelings keen, and fancy's glow-- They sleep with him who sleeps below: And, if thou mourn'st they could not save From error him who owns this grave, Be every harsher thought suppress'd, And sacred be the last long rest. Here, where the end of earthly things Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings; Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue, Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung; Here, where the fretted vaults prolong The distant notes of holy song, As if some angel spoke agen, 'All peace on earth, good-will to men'; If ever from an English heart, O, here let prejudice depart, And, partial feeling cast aside, Record that Fox a Briton died! When Europe crouch'd to France's yoke, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, And the firm Russian's purpose brave Was barter'd by a timorous slave-- Even then dishonour's peace he spurn'd, The sullied olive-branch return'd, Stood for his country's glory fast, And nail'd her colours to the mast! Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave A portion in this honour'd grave; And ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such wondrous men the dust.

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 Shook 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 known The names of PITT and Fox alone. Spells of such force no wizard grave E'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, The 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. Drop 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, '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?'

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1772-1834

549. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner