To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears, 55
And in her glory reappears. 
But oh! my Country’s wintry state
What second spring shall renovate? 
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise; 60
The mind that thought for Britain’s weal,
The hand that grasp’d the victor steel? 
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine, 65
Where Glory weeps o’er Nelson’s shrine: 
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,
That shrouds, O Pitt, thy hallow’d tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart! 70
Say to your sons,—­Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless course was given. 
Where’er his country’s foes were found, 75
Was heard the fated thunder’s sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Roll’d, blazed, destroyed,—­and was no more.

Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth, 80
And launch’d that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britain’s weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, 85
For Britain’s sins, an early grave! 
His worth, who, in his mightiest hour,
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spum’d at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself; 90
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Strain’d at subjection’s bursting rein,
O’er their wild mood full conquest gain’d,
The pride, he would not crush, restrain’d,
Show’d their fierce zeal a worthier cause, 95
And brought the freeman’s arm, to aid the freeman’s laws.

Had’st thou but lived, though stripp’d of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand; 100
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propp’d the tottering throne: 
Now is the stately column broke, 105
The beacon-light is quench’d in smoke,
The trumpet’s silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!

Oh, think, how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claim’d his prey, 110
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, 115
The steerage of the realm gave way!