ful Ode on the Death of Sir John, written by the
Rev. Mr. Wolfe:--
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral-note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell-shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the straggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin inclosed his breast,
Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him,
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we stedfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hallowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,--
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone--
But we left him alone with his glory.
~Persian Tyranny.~
Sir R.K. Porter, in his travels in Persia, met with the sufferer from
despotic tyranny and cruelty whose story is here related. He informs us,
that the benignity of this person's countenance, united with the
crippled state of his venerable frame, from the effects of his
precipitation from the terrible height of execution, excited his
curiosity to inquire into the particulars of so amazing a preservation.
Entering into conversation on the amiable characters of the reigning
royal family of Persia, and comparing the present happiness of his
country under their rule, with its misery during the sanguinary
usurpation of the tyrant Nackee Khan, the good old man, who had himself
been so signal an example of that misery, was easily led to describe the
extraordinary circumstances of his own case. Being connected with the
last horrible acts, and consequent fall of the usurper, a double
interest acco
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