Poem by William Crowe

On the Death of Captain Cook

I will not meditate in idle show
Of labour’d lines my sorrow to relate;
All artless as the tears my verse shall flow
That good men weep for his untimely fate.

The friends of peace and friends of human kind
To mourn thy loss, adventurous Chief, agree;
And all who love the bold or generous mind,
And all who science love must weep for thee.

By thee to soft Taheite’s sultry clime,
By thee to chill Kamschatzcha’s frozen zone,
And Isles ne’er view’d till George’s golden time
Britannia’s mighty name at length was known.

O how unlike Magellan! he who bent
His daring sail to untried winds, and first
The world encompass’d—save in sad event
Of timeless death by savage hands accurst.

The Arts of Peace He cared not to extend;
For gold th’ untravel’d sea his bark explored,
For lust of gold he rashly strove to bend
The free-born Indian to his lawless sword.

Not such the generous purpose of thy will;
With zeal untired and patient toil it strove
To make th’ untutor’d savage learn thy skill,
And the fierce-manner’d tribes embrace thy love.

For this thy vessel plough’d the stormy wave,
For this the pendent globe thrice circled round,
When the rude hand of some unconscious slave
With brutal fury dealt the fatal wound.

Hold! hold, Barbarian! shall the guilty strife
Provoke to mortal acts thy frantic hand?
Let fall thy stroke on some less-valued life;
But save, O! save the Chieftain of the band!

E’en hostile kings bade spare his honour’d head,
The bloodless trophies of his fame bade spare;
And Peace and Science wide their influence spread
To guard him from the wasteful rage of war:

In vain—he falls—he dies—behold him bleed—
Ah wretched Isle! ah murderous, murderous race!
The guilt, the memory of this ruffian deed
What pains can expiate, or what time efface?

Henceforth no ship shall spread her canvas wing
To visit that inhospitable strand;
Save that in after times if chance shall bring
Some bark storm driven near the hateful land;

Ev’n then the hardy mariner shall mourn;
And as he views it rising from the main,
Far from the inhuman shore his prow shall turn,
Cursing the murderous isle where Cook was slain.

1. Lewesdon Hill
2. Inscribed beneath the Picture of an Ass
3. Merlin's Glass
4. Ode to the Lyric Muse
5. Elegy to the Memory of Dr. W. Hayes, Professor of Music in the University of Oxford

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