_Who died in a tent near Lewes, August 16, 1832, aged 74. He was
buried in St. Ann's Churchyard, in presence of a thousand spectators._
Hurrah!--hurrah!--pile up the mould:
The Sun will gild its sod:--
The Sun,--for threescore years and ten
The Gipsy's idol God!--
O'er field and fen,--by waste and wild,
He watch'd its glories rise,
To worship at that gorgeous shrine
The spirit of the skies.
No brick-built dwelling caged him in;
No lordly roof of stone;--
High o'er his couch the vault of Heaven
In star-bright splendour shone!
The rustling leaves still murmur'd there;
The rambling woodbine flower
Its twilight breath, exhal'd to cheer
The outcast's desert bower!
To him the forest's pathless depths
Their mossiest caves reveal'd;
To him, fair Nature's hand bequeath'd
Her fruits of flood and field;--
The flower,--the root,--the beast,--the bird,--
All living things, design'd
To feed the craving, or delight
The gaze of human kind!
The pencill'd wood-flower, fair and frail,--
The squirrel's cunning nest,--
The granite throne, with lichens wild,
In broidered vesture drest;--
Sweet violets bedded in their leaves,
The first soft pledge of Spring;--
Such were the gifts by Heaven's own hand
Shed on the Gipsy King!--
The snow-drop glistening in the wood,
The crowsfoot on the lea,
Their gold and silver coin pour'd forth
To store his treasury;
The springy moss, by fairies spread,
His velvet footcloth made;
His canopy shot up amid
The lime-tree's emerald shade.
Buck,--pheasant,--hare,--some lordly park
Still yielded to his feast;
And firing for his winter warmth,
And forage for his beast.
Happier than herald-blazoned Kings,
The monarch of the moor;--
_He_ levied taxes from the rich,--
_They_ wring them from the poor!
With glow-worm lamp, and incense cull'd
Fresh from the bean-fields breath;
And matin lark,--and vesper thrush,
And honey-hoarded heath;--
A throne beneath the forest-boughs,
Fann'd by the wild bird's wing;
Of all the potentates on earth,
Hail to the GIPSY KING!
_Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_.
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