HAIL , precious drops! may you relief impart
Unto the Royal Mourner’s gentle heart.
Hail, precious drops! by nature kindly lent,
Grief’s overpow’ring torrent to prevent.
Hail, precious drops! you flow from virtue’s source,
And prove affection in its native force.
While touch’d thy heart with mingled feelings deep,
The child, the sister, and the princess weep.
In thy soft sorrows I can sympathize,
Shed tear for tear, and echo back thy sighs.
When erst with joy was hail’d June’s sunny morn,
Health, smiling, did magnificence adorn.
When thou wert wont to meet the courtly train,
Thy Royal Father’s presence grac’d the scene:
Now doth blank absence saddening gloom impart,
While thrilling memory presses on thy heart.
Royal Elizabeth thine ear incline,
‘Twill lull thy griefs a while to list to mine.
‘Tis thine, by bounty, to relieve distress;
‘Tis mine–the generous impulse to repress:
Misfortune o’er each aim holds stern controul,
Well nigh to “freeze the current of the soul.”
We mourn our much lov’d Monarch’s weaken’d sight:
My aged mother hath not seen the light
Of fifteen annual suns, whose course have roll’d
Darkly to her, nor object did unfold.
Thy wrung imagination rapid flies
Towards the couch where lov’d Amelia lies;
Where every aid, which art and nature give,
Combine to bid the drooping fair revive.
The sister, who in all my feelings’ shares,
Gilds my few pleasures, and allays my cares,
Is, by asthmatic struggles, nightly pain’d,
Her loaded breathing, short, convulsive strain’d.
One woe doth of another quick take place,
And, as the crystal drops each other chase,
The unclosed wounds of Cumberland now claim
The tears, which from so many sources stream.
O Trafalgar! I linger o’er thy wave,
My dear, my only Brother’s early grave;
On that triumphant day, whose circling sun
Saw glorious Death, Renown, and Conquest won.
Bright, in his breast, glow’d the heroic flame,
He fell with NELSON, and that fate was fame.
From infant years his country was his boast,
And ardent in her cause his life he lost.
He cheer’d her victory with his latest breath,
And fell, exulting, in the arms of death.
Dire dispensation! fraught with stern distress;
A sister thou–’twere needless to express
A sister’s sorrow on the sad decree,
For nature’s feelings all seem known to thee.
Yet, ‘midst our griefs, lo! we delighted see
Britain, exulting, hail her Jubilee.
Hark! mingling with the sound of dashing waves,
“The Jubilee,” echoes thro’ the Thulian caves.
May Heaven restore sweet Peace, with all her charms,
Or shield our country ‘midst fell War’s alarms.
And may Britannia and Neptune keep,
In union firm, their empire o’er the deep!
(Margaret Chalmers)
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