Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Yes britain mourns, as with electric shock
Last Line: For him who does not weep.
Alternate Author Name(s): Aikin, Anna Letitia
Subject(s): Charlotte Augusta, Princess (d. 1817); Mourning; Bereavement


Yes Britain mourns, as with electric shock
For youth, for love, for happiness destroyed.
Her universal population wells
In grief spontaneous; and hard hearts are moved,
And rough unpolished natures learn to feel
For those they envied, humbled in the dust
By fate's impartial hand; and pulpits sound
With vanity and woe to earthly goods,
And urge, and dry the tear -- Yet one there is
Who midst this general burst of grief remains
In strange tranquillity; whom not the stir
And long drawn murmurs of the gathering crowd,
That by his very windows trail the pomp
Of hearse, and blazoned arms, and long array
Of sad funereal rites, nor the loud groans
And deep felt anguish of a husband's heart
Can move to mingle with this flood one tear.
In careless apathy -- perhaps in mirth
He spends the day; yet is he near in blood,
The very stem on which this blossom grew,
And at his knees she fondled, in the charm
And grace spontaneous, which alone belongs
To untaught infancy; yet -- Oh forbear
Nor deem him hard of heart, for, awful, struck
By heaven's severest visitation, sad,
Like a scathed oak amidst the forest trees
Lonely he stands; leaves sprout, and fade, and fall,
And seasons run their round, to him in vain,
He holds no sympathy with living nature,
Or time's incessant change. Then, in this hour,
While pensive thought is busy with the woes
And restless cares of poor humanity,
Oh think of him, and set apart one sigh,
From the full tide of sorrow spare one tear
For him who does not weep.





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