Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 096.djvu/278

264 O'er far Australia’s coral strands,

Where England's victor-flag unfurled

Waves proudly o'er a new-found world,

To burning Afric's golden sands;—

From where the calm Pacific flows—

From the Atlantic's sunny isles,

Where an unchanging summer smiles—

To regions of eternal snows;—

That chastening gloom shall widely spread

And, mingling sad regret with praise,

Fall many a tearful voice shall raise

A requiem to the honoured dead!

'Twere vain—and worse than vain—to speculate

Upon the solemn mysteries of that state

Which God hath willed to shroud from mortal eyes,

Till, in loud thunders through the fading skies

The Archangel's trump shall sound; at whose dread call

The shivering Earth's fast hills and rocks shall fall,

And this creation, tottering to a close,

Become once more the chaos whence it rose!

Yet, in yon viewless realms—vast and sublime—

Beyond the reach of Fancy, as of Time—

If the two mightiest once on earth may meet,

How will each spirit its great rival greet?

Napoleon! Wellington! Oh! although here

Their names as watchwords of their age appear,

There, they will sink to nothingness beside

The Cherubim and Seraphim who glide

In light and glory all celestial—they

Have never worn the garb of human clay!

How fares that spirit in the shadowy land,

Where all—the greatest on this orb must stand

In trembling awe before the Eternal's throne?

Oh! there, may Christ have claimed him for His own,

And, 'midst His mercy and His power to save,

Have bid him rise victorious from the grave!