Death Of Captain Cooke, - Of "The Bellerophon," Killed In The Same Battle

When anxious Spain, along her rocky shore,     From cliff to cliff returned the sea-fight's roar;     When flash succeeding flash, tremendous broke     The haze incumbent, and the clouds of smoke,     As oft the volume rolled away, thy mien,     Thine eye, serenely terrible, was seen,     My gallant friend. Hark! the shrill bugle[1] calls,     Is the day won! alas, he falls he falls!     His soul from pain, from agony release!     Hear his last murmur, Let me die in peace![2]     Yet still, brave Cooke, thy country's grateful tear,     Shall wet the bleeding laurel on thy bier.     But who shall wake to joy, through a long life     Of sadness, thy beloved and widowed wife,     Who now, perhaps, thinks how the green seas foam,     That bear thy victor ship impatient home!     Alas! the well-known views, the swelling plain,     Thy laurel-circled home, endeared in vain,     The brook, the church, those chestnuts darkly-green,[3]     Yon fir-crowned summit,[4] and the village scene,     Wardour's long sweep of woods, the nearer mill,     And high o'er all, the turrets of Font Hill:     These views, when summer comes, shall charm no more     Him o'er whose welt'ring corse the wild waves roar,     Enough: 'twas Honour's voice that awful cried,     Glory to him who for his country died!     Yet dreary is her solitude who bends     And mourns the best of husbands, fathers, friends!     Oh! when she wakes at midnight, but to shed     Fresh tears of anguish on her lonely bed,     Thinking on him who is not; then restrain     The tear, O God, and her sad heart sustain!     Giver of life, may she remember still     Thy chastening hand, and to thy sovereign will     Bow silently; not hopeless, while her eye     She raises to a bright futurity,     And meekly trusts, in heaven, Thou wilt restore     That happiness the world can give no more!