Classic Poem

Placed midst the tempest, whose conflicting waves
The buoyant form of Gallic Freedom braves,
I from its swelling surge unheedful turn,
While o'er the grave where Kippis rests I mourn.
Friend of my life, by every tie endeared,
By me lamented, as by me revered!
Whene'er remembrance would the past renew,
His image mingles with the pensive view;
Him through life's lengthening scene I mark with pride,
My earliest teacher, and my latest guide.
First, in the house of prayer, his voice impressed
Celestial precepts on my infant breast;
" The hope that rests above" my childhood taught,
And lifted first to God my ductile thought.
And, when the heaven-born Muse's cherished art
Shed its fresh pleasures on my glowing heart;
Flashed o'er my soul one spark of purer light,
New worlds unfolding to my raptured sight;
When first with timid hand I touched the lyre,
And felt the youthful poet's proud desire,
His liberal comment fanned the dawning flame,
His plaudit soothed me with a poet's name;
Led by his counsels to the public shrine,
He bade the trembling hope to please be mine;
What he forgave, the critic eye forgives,
And, for a while, the verse he sanctioned lives.
When on that spot where Gallic Freedom rose,
And where she mourned her unexampled woes,
Scourge of his nature, and its worst disgrace,
Curse of his age, and murderer of his race,
Th' ignoble Tyrant of his Country stood,
And bathed his scaffolds in the patriot's blood;
Destined the patriot's fate in all to share,
To feel his triumphs, and his pangs to bear;
To shun th' uplifted axe, condemned to roam
A weeping exile from my cherished home;
When Malice poured her dark insatiate lie,
Called it, though death to stay, a crime to fly;
And, while the falsehood served her hateful ends,
Congenial audience found in hollow friends;
Who to the tale " assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer";
His friendship o'er me spread that guardian shield,
Which his severest virtue best could wield;
Repelled by him, relentless Slander found
Her dart bereft of half its power to wound.
Alas! no more to him the task belongs
To soothe my sorrows, or redress my wrongs;
No more his lettered aid, enlightened sage!
Shall mark the errors of my careless page;
Shall hide from public view the faulty line,
And bid the merit he bestows be mine.
Ah! while with fond regret my feeble verse
Would pour its tribute o'er his hallowed hearse,
For him his Country twines her civic palm,
And Learning's tears his honoured name embalm;
His were the lavish stores her force sublime,
Through every passing age, has snatched from Time;
His the historian's wreath, the critic's art,
A rigid judgement, but a feeling heart;
His the warm purpose for the general weal,
The Christian's meekness and the Christian's zeal;
And his the moral worth to which is given
Earth's purest homage, and the meed of heaven.