I too have known what ’tis to part
With the first inmate of my heart--
To feel the bonds of nature riven--
To witness o’er the glowing dawn,
The spring of youth, the fire of heaven,
The grave’s deep shadows drawn!
He sleeps not on the gory plain
The slumber of the brave--
Dear Victim of disease, and pain,
Where high Madeira’s summits reign
Far o’er the Atlantic wave,
He sought eluding health--in vain--
Health never lit his eye again,
He fills a foreign grave!
Oh, had he lived, his hand to-day
Had woven for the victor’s brow,
Such garland of immortal bay,
Such chaplet as the enraptured lay
Of genius may bestow!
Or,--since ’twas Heaven’s severer doom
To snatch him to an earlier tomb--
Would, Wellesley, would that he had died
Beneath thine eye and at thy side!
It would have lighten’d sorrow’s load,
Had thy applause on him bestow’d
The fame he loved in thee;
And rear’d his honoured tomb beside
Those of the gallant hearts who died,
Their kinsmen’s, friends’, and country’s pride,
In Talavera’s victory!