The Death of the Princess Charlotte

Mark’d ye the mingling of the city’s throng,Each mien, each glance, with expectation bright?Prepare the pageant and the choral song,The pealing chimes, the blaze of festal light!And hark! what rumour’s gathering sound is nigh?Is it the voice of joy, that murmur deep?Away! be hush’d, ye sounds of revelry!Back to your homes, ye multitudes, to weep!Weep! for the storm hath o’er us darkly pass’d,And England’s royal flower is broken by the blast!

Was it a dream? so sudden and so dreadThat awful fiat o’er our senses came!So loved, so blest, is that young spirit fled,Whose early grandeur promised years of fame?Oh! when hath life possess’d, or death destroy’dMore lovely hopes, more cloudlessly that smiled?When hath the spoiler left so dark a void?For all is lost--the mother and her child!Our morning-star hath vanish’d, and the tombThrows its deep lengthen’d shade o’er distant years to come.

Angel of Death! did no presaging signAnnounce thy coming, and thy way prepare?No warning voice, no harbinger was thine,Danger and fear seem’d past--but thou wert there!Prophetic sounds along the earthquake’s pathForetell the hour of nature’s awful throes;And the volcano, ere it burst in wrath,Sends forth some herald from its dread repose:But thou, dark Spirit! swift and unforeseen,Cam’st like the lightning’s flash, when heaven is all serene.

And she is gone!--the royal and the young,In soul commanding, and in heart benign!Who, from a race of kings and heroes sprung,Glow’d with a spirit lofty as her line.Now may the voice she loved on earth so wellBreathe forth her name unheeded and in vain;Nor can those eyes on which her own would dwellWake from that breast one sympathy again:The ardent heart, the towering mind are fled,Yet shall undying love still linger with the dead.

Oh, many a bright existence we have seenQuench’d in the glow and fulness of its prime;And many a cherish’d flower, ere now, hath beenCropt ere its leaves were breathed upon by time.We have lost heroes in their noon of pride,Whose fields of triumph gave them but a bier;And we have wept when soaring genius died,Check’d in the glory of his mid career!But here our hopes were centred--all is o’er:All thought in this absorb’d,--she was--and is no more!

We watch’d her childhood from its earliest hour,From every word and look blest omens caught;While that young mind developed all its power,And rose to energies of loftiest thought.On her was fix’d the patriot’s ardent eye--One hope still bloom’d, one vista still was fair;And when the tempest swept the troubled sky,She was our dayspring--all was cloudless there;And oh! how lovely broke on England’s gaze,E’en through the mist and storm, the fight of distant days.

Now hath one moment darken’d future years,And changed the track of ages yet to be!--Yet, mortal! midst the bitterness of tears,Kneel, and adore th’ inscrutable decree!Oh! while the clear perspective smiled in light,Wisdom should then have temper’d hope’s excess;And, lost One! when we saw thy lot so bright,We might have trembled at its loveliness.Joy is no earthly flower--nor framed to bear,In its exotic bloom, life’s cold, ungenial air.

All smiled around thee: Youth, and Love, and Praise,Hearts all devotion and all truth were thine!On thee was riveted a nation’s gaze,As on some radiant and unsullied shrine.Heiress of empires! thou art pass’d awayLike some fair vision, that arose to throwO’er one brief hour of life a fleeting ray,Then leave the rest to solitude and woe!Oh! who shall dare to woo such dreams again!Who hath not wept to know that tears for thee were vain?

Yet there is one who loved thee--and whose soulWith mild affections nature form’d to melt;His mind hath bow’d beneath the stern controlOf many a grief--but this shall be unfelt!Years have gone by--and given his honour’d headA diadem of snow; his eye is dim;Around him Heaven a solemn cloud hath spread--The past, the future, are a dream to him!Yet, in the darkness of his fate, aloneHe dwells on earth, while thou in life’s full pride art gone!

The Chastener’s hand is on us--we may weep,But not repine--for many a storm hath pass’d,And, pillow’d on her own majestic deep,Hath England slept, unshaken by the blast!And War hath raged o’er many a distant plain,Trampling the vine and olive in his path;While she, that regal daughter of the main,Smiled in serene defiance of his wrath!As some proud summit, mingling with the sky,Hears calmly far below the thunders roll and die.

Her voice hath been th’ awakener--and her nameThe gathering-word of nations. In her might,And all the awful beauty of her fame,Apart she dwelt, in solitary light.High on her cliffs, alone and firm she stood,Fixing the torch upon her beacon-tower--That torch whose flame, far streaming o’er the flood,Hath guided Europe through her darkest hour.Away, vain dreams of glory!--in the dustBe humbled, Ocean-queen! and own thy sentence just!

Hark! ’twas the death-bell’s note! which, full and deep,Unmix’d with aught of less majestic tone,While all the murmurs of existence sleep,Swell’d on the stillness of the air alone!Silent the throngs that fill the darken’d street,Silent the slumbering Thames, the lonely mart;And all is still, where countless thousands meet,Save the full throbbing of the awe-struck heart!All deeply, strangely, fearfully serene,As in each ravaged home th’ avenging one had been.

The sun goes down in beauty--his farewell,Unlike the world he leaves, is calmly bright;And his last mellow’d rays around us dwell,Lingering, as if on scenes of young delight.They smile and fade--but, when the day is o’er,What slow procession moves with measured tread?--Lo! those who weep, with her who weeps no more,A solemn train--the mourners and the dead!While, throned on high, the moon’s untroubled rayLooks down, as earthly hopes are passing thus away.

But other light is in that holy pile,Where, in the house of silence, kings repose;There, through the dim arcade and pillar’d aisle,The funeral torch its deep-red radiance throws.There pall, and canopy, and sacred strain,And all around the stamp of woe may bear;But Grief, to whose full heart those forms are vain,Grief unexpress’d, unsoothed by them--is there.No darker hour hath Fate for him who mourns,Than when the all he loved, as dust, to dust returns.

We mourn--but not thy fate, departed One!We pity--but the living, not the dead;A cloud hangs o’er us--“the bright day is done,”And with a father’s hopes, a nation’s fled.And he, the chosen of thy youthful breast,Whose soul with thine had mingled every thought--He, with thine early fond affections blest,Lord of a mind with all things lovely fraught;What but a desert to his eye, that earth,Which but retains of thee the memory of thy worth?

Oh! there are griefs for nature too intense,Whose first rude shock but stupifies the soul;Nor hath the fragile and o’erlabour’d senseStrength e’en to feel at once their dread control.But when ’tis past, that still and speechless hourOf the seal’d bosom and the tearless eye,Then the roused mind awakes, with tenfold powerTo grasp the fulness of its agony!Its deathlike torpor vanish’d--and its doom,To cast its own dark hues o’er life and nature’s bloom.

And such his lot whom thou hast loved and left,Spirit! thus early to thy home recall’d!So sinks the heart, of hope and thee bereft,A warrior’s heart, which danger ne’er appall’d.Years may pass on--and, as they roll along,Mellow those pangs which now his bosom rend;And he once more, with life’s unheeding throng,May, though alone in soul, in seeming blend;Yet still, the guardian-angel of his mindShall thy loved image dwell, in Memory’s temple shrined.

Yet must the days be long ere time shall stealAught from his grief whose spirit dwells with thee:Once deeply bruised, the heart at length may heal,But all it was--oh! never more shall be.The flower, the leaf, o’erwhelm’d by winter snow,Shall spring again, when beams and showers return,The faded cheek again with health may glow,And the dim eye with life’s warm radiance burn;But the pure freshness of the mind’s young bloom,Once lost, revives alone in worlds beyond the tomb.

But thou! thine hour of agony is o’er,And thy brief race in brilliance hath been run;While Faith, that bids fond nature grieve no more,Tells that thy crown--though not on earth--is won.Thou, of the world so early left, hast knownNought but the bloom and sunshine--and for thee,Child of propitious stars! for thee alone,The course of love ran smooth and brightly free.Not long such bliss to mortal could be given:It is enough for earth to catch one glimpse of heaven.

What though, ere yet the noonday of thy fameRose in its glory on thine England’s eye,The grave’s deep shadows o’er thy prospect came?Ours is that loss--and thou wert blest to die!Thou mightst have lived to dark and evil years,To mourn thy people changed, thy skies o’ercast;But thy spring morn was all undimm’d by tears,And thou wert loved and cherish’d to the last!And thy young name, ne’er breathed in ruder tone,Thus dying, thou hast left to love and grief alone.

Daughter of Kings! from that high sphere look downWhere still, in hope, affection’s thoughts may rise;Where dimly shines to thee that mortal crownWhich earth display’d to claim thee from the skies.Look down! and if thy spirit yet retainMemory of aught that once was fondly dear,Soothe, though unseen, the hearts that mourn in vain,And in their hours of loneliness--be near!Blest was thy lot e’en here--and one faint sigh,Oh! tell those hearts, hath made that blest eternity!

“I saw him last on this terrace proud,Walking in health and gladness;Begirt with his court--and in all the crowdNot a single look of sadness.

“The time since he walk’d in glory thus,To the grave till I saw him carried,Was an age of the mightiest change to us,But to him a night unvaried.

“A daughter beloved--a queen--a son--And a son’s sole child had perish’d;And sad was each heart, save the only oneBy which they were fondest cherish’d.”

“The bright day is done,And we are for the dark.”--Shakspeare.