Thou canst not bring Back to his mournful heart the morn of spring;-- Thou canst not bid the rose of health renew Upon his wasted cheek its crimson hue; 80 But at thy look, (ere yet to hate resigned, He murmurs his last curses on mankind), At thy kind look one tender thought shall rise, And his full soul shall thank thee ere he dies! Oh ye, who list to Pleasure's vacant song, As in her silken train ye troop along; Who, like rank cowards, from affliction fly, Or, whilst the precious hours of life pass by, Lie slumbering in the sun! Awake, arise, To these instructive pictures turn your eyes; 90 The awful view with other feelings scan, And learn from HOWARD what man owes to man! These, Virtue! are thy triumphs, that adorn Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born For loftier action; not to gaze and run From clime to clime; nor flutter in the sun, Dragging a droning flight from flower to flower, Like summer insects in a gaudy hour; Nor yet o'er love-sick tales with fancy range, And cry--'Tis pitiful, 'tis wondrous strange! 100 But on life's varied views to look around, And raise expiring sorrow from the ground:-- And he who thus has borne his part assigned In the sad fellowship of human kind, Or for a moment soothed the bitter pain Of a poor brother, has not lived in vain! But 'tis not that Compassion should bestow An unavailing tear on want or woe: Lo! fairer Order rises from thy plan, Befriending virtue, and adorning man.

110 That Comfort cheers the dark abode of pain, Where wan Disease prayed for relief in vain; That Mercy soothes the hard behest of law; That Misery smiles upon her bed of straw; That the dark felon's clan no more, combined, Murmur in murderous leagues against mankind; That to each cell, a mild yet mournful guest, Contrition comes, and calms the laboring breast, Whilst long-forgotten tears of virtue flow; Thou, generous friend of all--to thee we owe! 120 To thee, that Pity sees her views expand To many a cheerless haunt, and distant land! Whilst warm Philanthropy extends her ray, Wide as the world, and general as the day! HOWARD! I view those deeds, and think how vain The triumphs of weak man, the feeble strain That Flattery brings to Conquest's crimson car, Amid the bannered host, and the proud tents of war! From realm to realm the hideous War-fiend hies Wide o'er the wasted earth; before him flies 130 Affright, on pinions fleeter than the wind; Whilst Death and Desolation fast behind The havoc of his echoing march pursue: Meantime his steps are bathed in the warm dew Of bloodshed, and of tears;--but his dread name Shall perish--the loud clarion of his fame One day shall cease, and, wrapt in hideous gloom, Forgetfulness bestride his shapeless tomb! But bear thou fearless on;--the God of all, To whom the afflicted kneel, the friendless call, 140 From His high throne of mercy shall approve The holy deeds of Mercy and of Love: For when the vanities of life's brief day Oblivion's hurrying wing shall sweep away, Each act by Charity and Mercy done, 145 High o'er the wrecks of time, shall live alone, Immortal as the heavens, and beauteous bloom To other worlds, and realms beyond the tomb.
THE GRAVE OF HOWARD.
Spirit of Death! whose outstretched pennons dread Wave o'er the world beneath their shadow spread; Who darkly speedest on thy destined way, Midst shrieks and cries, and sounds of dire dismay; Spirit! behold thy victory! Assume A form more terrible, an ampler plume; For he, who wandered o'er the world alone, Listening to Misery's universal moan; He who, sustained by Virtue's arm sublime, Tended the sick and poor from clime to clime, 10 Low in the dust is laid, thy noblest spoil! And Mercy ceases from her awful toil! 'Twas where the pestilence at thy command Arose to desolate the sickening land, When many a mingled cry and dying prayer Resounded to the listening midnight air, When deep dismay heard not the frequent knell, And the wan carcase festered as it fell: 'Twas there, with holy Virtue's awful mien, Amid the sad sights of that fearful scene, 20 Calm he was found: the dews of death he dried; He spoke of comfort to the poor that cried; He watched the fading eye, the flagging breath, Ere yet the languid sense was lost in death; And with that look protecting angels wear, Hung o'er the dismal couch of pale Despair! Friend of mankind! thy righteous task is o'er; The heart that throbbed with pity beats no more.
Around the limits of this rolling sphere, Where'er the just and good thy tale shall hear, 30 A tear shall fall: alone, amidst the gloom Of the still dungeon, his long sorrow's tomb, The captive, mourning, o'er his chain shall bend, To think the cold earth holds his only friend! He who with labour draws his wasting breath On the forsaken silent bed of death, Remembering thy last look and anxious eye, Shall gaze around, unvisited, and die.
Friend of mankind, farewell! These tears we shed-- So nature dictates--o'er thy earthly bed; 40 Yet we forget not, it was His high will, Who saw thee Virtue's arduous task fulfil, Thy spirit from its toil at last should rest:-- So wills thy GOD, and what He wills is best! Thou hast encountered dark Disease's train, Thou hast conversed with Poverty and Pain, Thou hast beheld the dreariest forms of woe, That through this mournful vale unfriended go; And, pale with sympathy, hast paused to hear The saddest plaints e'er told to human ear.

50 Go then, the task fulfilled, the trial o'er, Where sickness, want, and pain are known no more! How awful did thy lonely track appear, Enlightening Misery's benighted sphere! As when an angel all-serene goes forth To still the raging tempest of the north, The embattled clouds that hid the struggling day, Slow from his face retire in dark array; On the black waves, like promontories hung, A light, as of the orient morn, is flung, 60 Till blue and level heaves the silent brine, And the new-lighted rocks at distance shine; Ev'n so didst thou go forth with cheering eye-- Before thy glance the shades of misery fly; So didst thou hush the tempest, stilling wide Of human woe the loud-lamenting tide.
Nor shall the spirit of those deeds expire, As fades the feeble spark of vital fire, But beam abroad, and cheer with lustre mild Humanity's remotest prospects wild, 70 Till this frail orb shall from its sphere be hurled, Till final ruin hush the murmuring world, And all its sorrows, at the awful blast Of the archangel's trump, be but as shadows past! Relentless Time, that steals with silent tread, Shall tear away the trophies of the dead.
Fame, on the pyramid's aspiring top, With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop; The feeble characters of Glory's hand Shall perish, like the tracks upon the sand; 80 But not with these expire the sacred flame Of Virtue, or the good man's honoured name.
HOWARD! it matters not, that far away From Albion's peaceful shore thy bones decay: Him it might please, by whose sustaining hand Thy steps were led through many a distant land.
Thy long and last abode should there be found, Where many a savage nation prowls around: That Virtue from the hallowed spot might rise, And, pointing to the finished sacrifice, 90 Teach to the roving Tartar's savage clan Lessons of love, and higher aims of man.
The hoary chieftain, who thy tale shall hear, Pale on thy grave shall drop his faltering spear; The cold, unpitying Cossack thirst no more To bathe his burning falchion deep in gore; Relentless to the cry of carnage speed, Or urge o'er gasping heaps his panting steed! Nor vain the thought that fairer hence may rise New views of life, and wider charities.

100 Far from the bleak Riphean mountains hoar, From the cold Don, and Wolga's wandering shore, From many a shady forest's lengthening tract, From many a dark-descending cataract, Succeeding tribes shall come, and o'er the place, Where sleeps the general friend of human race, Instruct their children what a debt they owe; Speak of the man who trode the paths of woe; Then bid them to their native woods depart, With new-born virtue stirring in their heart.

110 When o'er the sounding Euxine's stormy tides In hostile pomp the Turk's proud navy rides, Bent on the frontiers of the Imperial Czar, To pour the tempest of vindictive war; If onward to those shores they haply steer, Where, HOWARD, thy cold dust reposes near, Whilst o'er the wave the silken pennants stream, And seen far off the golden crescents gleam, Amid the pomp of war, the swelling breast Shall feel a still unwonted awe impressed, 120 And the relenting Pagan turn aside To think--on yonder shore the _Christian_ died! But thou, O Briton! doomed perhaps to roam An exile many a year and far from home, If ever fortune thy lone footsteps leads To the wild Nieper's banks, and whispering reeds, O'er HOWARD's grave thou shalt impassioned bend, As if to hold sad converse with a friend.
Whate'er thy fate upon this various scene, Where'er thy weary pilgrimage hath been, 130 There shalt thou pause; and shutting from thy heart Some vain regrets that oft unbidden start, Think upon him to every lot resigned, Who wept, who toiled, and perished for mankind.
For me, who musing, HOWARD, on thy fate, These pensive strains at evening meditate, I thank thee for the lessons thou hast taught To mend my heart, or animate my thought.
I thank thee, HOWARD, for that awful view Of life which thou hast drawn, most sad, most true.