Poetry Archives

Swift through the land while Fame transported flies,
And shouts triumphant shake th’ illumined skies;
Britannia, bending o’er her dauntless prows,
With laurels thickening round her blazon’d brows,
In joy dejected, sees her triumph cross’d,
Exults in Victory won, but mourns the Victor lost.
Immortal NELSON! still with fond amaze
Thy glorious deed each British eye surveys,
Beholds thee still, on conquer’d floods afar:
Fate’s flaming shaft! the thunderbolt of war!
Hurl’d from thy hands, Britannia’s vengeance roars,
And bloody billows stain the hostile shores:
Thy sacred ire Confed’rate Kingdoms braves,
And ‘whelms their Navies in Sepulchral waves!
—Graced with each attribute which Heaven supplies
To Godlike Chiefs: humane, intrepid, wise:
His Nation’s Bulwark, and all Nature’s pride,
The Hero lived, and as he lived—he died:
Transcendant destiny! how bless’d the brave,
Whose fall his Country’s tears attend, shower’d on his trophied grave!