Page:The Sceptic.pdf/19

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And thou,* just lent thy gladden'd isles to bless, Then snatch'd from earth with all thy loveliness, With all a nation's blessings on thy head, O England's flower! wert gather'd to the dead? But thou didst teach us. Thou to every heart, Faith's lofty lesson didst thyself impart! When fled the hope through all thy pangs which smiled, When thy young bosom o'er thy lifeless child, Yearn'd with vain longing—still thy patient eye To its last light beam'd holy constancy! Torn from a lot in cloudless sunshine cast, Amidst those agonies—thy first and last, Thy pale lip, quivering with convulsive throes, Breathed not a plaint—and settled in repose; While bow'd thy royal head to Him, whose power Spoke in the fiat of that midnight hour, Who from the brightest vision of a throne, Love, glory, empire, claim'd thee for his own, And spread such terror o'er the sea-girt coast, As blasted Israel, when her Ark was lost!

"It is the will of God!"—yet, yet we hear The words which closed thy beautiful career; Yet should we mourn thee in thy blest abode, But for that thought—"It is the will of God!" Who shall arraign th' Eternal's dark decree, If not one murmur then escaped from thee? Oh! still, though vanishing without a trace, Thou hast not left one scion of thy race,