“Perhaps the Lugano Gazette
may not have given you the great news from the North, which excites much more
interest in me than any thing which is going on at present in the political
world. The Greenlandmen, last season, got as far as 84°, and saw no ice in any
direction; they were of opinion, that if they could have ventured to make the
experiment, they might have reached the pole without any obstruction of this
kind. The coast of East Greenland, which had been blocked up for four or five
centuries, was open. It is believed that some
| Ætat. 43. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 287 |
“The amusements of Como may very probably become the amusements of England ere long.* This I think a likely consequence, from the death of the Princess Charlotte. In the lamentations upon this subject there has been a great deal of fulsome canting, and not a little faction; still, among the better part and the better classes of society, there was a much deeper and more general grief than could have been expected or would easily be believed. Two or three persons have told me that in most houses which they entered in London the women were in tears.
|
* This refers to the Princess of Wales, then living at Como. |
| 288 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 43. |
|
“’Tis not the public loss which hath imprest
This general grief upon the multitude;
And made its way at once to every breast,
The old, the young, the gentle, and the rude.
’Tis not that in the hour which might have crowned
The prayers preferred by every honest tongue.
The very hour which should have sent around
Tidings wherewith all churches would have rung,
And all our echoing streets have pealed with gladness,
And all our cities blazed with festal fire,
That then we saw the high-raised hope expire.
And England’s expectation quenched in sadness.
This surely might have forced a sudden tear.
Yet had we then thought only of the state,
To-morrow’s sun, which would have risen as fair,
Had seen upon our brow no cloud of care.
It is to think of what thou wert so late;
Oh, thou who liest clay-cold upon thy bier,
So young and so beloved, so richly blest
Beyond the common lot of royalty;
The object of thy worthy choice possest,
The many thousand souls that prayed for thee,
Hoping in thine a nation’s happiness;
And in thy youth, and in thy wedded bliss,
And in the genial bed—the cradle drest—
Hope standing by, and joy a bidden guest.
’Tis this that from the heart of private life
Makes unsophisticated sorrows flow:
We mourn thee as a daughter and a wife,
And in our human natures feel the blow.*
|
“Have you succeeded in getting sight of the aspide? In Cyprus they stand in such dread of this serpent, that the reapers have bells fixed to their sides and their sickles: κουϕ they call it there. One traveller names it the asp, and another asks veterum aspis? so I suppose it to be your neighbour. I do not know if the venom of your serpent produces death (as some others do), by paralysing the heart,
* This has never been published. The Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotte is a much more elaborate and beautiful composition. |
| Ætat. 43. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 289 |
“God bless you!
