The Triumph of Benevolence

WHAT lofty sound through crested Albion rings!
What raptur'd notes as if by Angels giv'n!
What thrilling airs, as from coelestial strings,
Pour in full tide the harmonies of Heaven!

From Public Gratitude the notes arise,
To honour virtuous HOWARD yet on earth;
While Providence yet spares him from the skies,
Th'enduring Statue shall attest his worth.

Lo, Albion's ardent sons the deed approve,
Wide o'er the realm to spread the generous flame,
A spirit like his own begins to move,
A thousand virtues kindle at his name.

This, this the moment, Britons, ye should chuse,
While the fair act no modest blush can raise:
The good man's absence shall our love excuse,
And give the full-plum'd luxury of praise.

By Heaven commission'd, now our Patriot flies
Where Nature scourges with her worst disease,
Where plague-devoted Turkey's victim lies,
Where spotted Deaths load every tainted breeze:

With love unbounded, love that knows not fear,
Wherever pain or sorrow dwells he goes,
Kindly as dew, and bounteous as the sphere,
His social heart no poor distinction knows.

Ah, what is friend or foe to Him, whose soul
Girding creation in one warm embrace,
Extends the saviour arm from pole to pole,
And feels akin to all the human race!

To all the human! all the brutal too;
Bird, beast, and insect, bless his gentle power,
From the worn steed reposing in his view,
To the tame red-breast warbling in his bower.

Well may the Spirit of the Isle arise,
With loud accord its best good man to grace;
Well may the statue point to yonder skies,
And call on Cherubim to guard the place.

Ye pomps of Egypt, moulder fast away;
Ye Roman vanities, your arches hide;
Ye Gallic pageantries, profusely gay,
Ye tombs, ye triumphs, here resign your pride.

For not to GRANDEUR tow'rs our destin'd bust:
We bribe no Muse a sordid wreath to twine
Round the frail urn of Infamy in dust;
Nor bid our incense deck a villain's shrine

Nor yet to PRIDE the venal Statue raise,
Preserving ashes Virtue had forgot:
We bid no trumpet sound a bad man's praise
Nor memory restore what time should rot.

Nor to the Slave of GOLD, though largely grac'd
With all that wealth on folly could bestow,
With all that Vanity on dust could waste;
Living and dead alike fair Virtue's foe.

Nor yet for THEE, thou tyrant of the plain,
Illustrious scourge and butcher of mankind!
Whose murth'ring hands whole hecatombs have slain,
Thy glory gathering as it thins thy kind.

Nor ev'n to thee, O FREDERIC ; though thy name,
The soldier's idol, Prussia breathes in sighs;
Though foremost in the list of sanguine fame,
And Vict'ry seems to claim thee in the skies.

Ah, no! the Monument our love would rear
Is to the MAN of PEACE, who may descend,
Ev'n at this moment, into dungeons drear,
The Prisoner's guardian, and the Mourner's friend.

Ev'n now, perchance, he bears some Victim food,
Or leads him to the beams of long-lost day;
Or from the air where putrid vapours brood
Chaces the Spirit of the Pest away.

Quit, Prussia, quit thy Frederic's crimson shrine,
With olive garlands join our white-rob'd band:
At HOWARD's statue—how unlike to thine!
Full many a saintly form shall duteous stand.

Her lightest footsteps here shall MERCY bend,
Fearing to crush some harmless insect near;
HUMANITY her fost'ring wing extend,
With PITY, softly smiling through her tear.

And CHARITY her liberal brow in air,
And pleasing MELANCHOLY pace around,
And warm BENEVOLENCE be ever there,
And CHRISTIAN MEEKNESS bless the hallow'd bound.

Here, too, some mortal visitants—the wife,
Parent and child restor'd, their joys shall tell:
Here sharp Remorse shall mourn a guilty life,
And hardness learn for human woe to feel.

With pious offerings hither shall repair
What once was Want, Contagion, and Disease:
Restor'd to all the liberty of air,
Here shall they hail the renovating breeze.

And Dissipation, as he passes here,
Abash'd that Vice has ravish'd all his store,
Conscious shall drop the penitential tear,
And spurn the follies which deny him more.

And Avarice too shall here suspend his art,
His bosom loosing from the sullen ore;
The Statue shall subdue his rugged heart,
And the rock gush in blessings to the poor.

And Envy, devious from her wonted plan,
Taught by the Statue ev'n a foe to save,
Shall tell her snakes to spare one virtuous man,
And own his goodness ere he reach the grave.

But should some blood-polluted Hero come,
Flush'd with the crimson waste his sword has made,
Meek HOWARD's Statue on that sword shall gloom,
Till tears shall seem to trickle on the blade.

And many a wondering Traveller shall pause,
To hail the land that gave an HOWARD birth,
Till Jealousy itself aids Virtue's cause,
Prompting the spirit of congenial worth.

And here the willing Muse shall oft retire,
To breathe her vows in many a graceful line;
From the blest Statue catch sublimer fire,
Whilst Inspiration hovers o'er the shrine.

Thou, to whose praise these honours gather round,
Receive this tribute from Affection's hand;
Thou, who art thus by all the Virtues crown'd
Accept the homage of thy native land.

And though the mem'ry of thy deeds shall bloom,
When Sculpture's proudest boast shall be no more,
When urns, like what they guarded, meet their doom,
And Time o'er Adamant exerts his power;

And though thy modest goodness shuns its right,
Though it would blushing shrink from just applause,
Unseen would bless, like showers that fall by night,
And shew th' effect while it would hide the cause;

True to the awful charge by Justice giv'n,
Fame still will follow with her clarion high,
On Rapture's plumage bear the sound to Heav'n,
Nor suffer virtue such as thine to die:

And oh, that wond'rous virtue has been sung
In deathless lays by Briton's loftiest bard,
Hymn'd by a lyre that Seraphs might have strung,
For HAYLEY'S MUSE has giv'n her fair reward.

But feeble all that mortal man can raise,
Feeble the trump that peals each honour'd name,
Feeble an Hayley's lyre, a nation's praise,
And all th' applausive notes of human fame.

Yet take our Pledge, though mix'd, alas, with earth:
Then hear the power that whispers in thy breast,
That voice from Heav'n alone can speak thy worth,
A recompensing GOD will give the rest.