Classic Poem

Hark! the conq'ring hero comes!
Lower your topsails, cloak your drums—
He comes—but not your praise to hear
For death has seal'd the conq'ror's ear.

The world may speak and England tell:
How nobly Nelson fought and fell,
And own'd his God with dying breath;
Who gave him victory ev'n in death!—

Boast not ye foe tho' Nelson bleeds,
The gallant C OLLINGWOOD succeeds,
Then valour shone in all its beauty
When “ev'ry seaman did his duty.”

Trafalgar's sea tho' dyed in blood,
Proclaims the fame of C OLLINGWOOD —
And ev'n the conscious Spaniard too,
Assign'd the noble chief his due.

Tho grief assails his gen'rous heart
He still maintains the hero's part,
And ev'n suppresses friendship's tear;
While Britain's foe is hov'ring near.

And when the valiant fight was o'er
And conquest could bestow no more;
Religion crown'd his triumphs past,
And tied the laurels round his mast.