Verses — On a Perspective View of Dilston Hall, the Seat of the Unfortunate James, Earl of Derwentwater
How mournful feeble Nature’s tone,
When Dilston Hall appears:
Where none’s to wait the orphan’s moan,
Nor dry the widow’s tears!
The helpless aged poor survey,
This building as it stands;
In moving anguish heard to say,
(And weeping wring their hands)
The bounteous earl, he is no more,
Who once adorn’d this plain;
Reliev’d the needy at his door,
And freely did sustain.
Here flowing plenty once did reign,
Which gladden’d ev’ry face;
But now, alas! reversed scene,
For owls a dwelling place.
The tim’rous deer hath left the lawn,
The oak a victim falls;
The gentle trav’ler sighs when shewn,
These desolated walls.
Each gen’rous mind emotion feels,
With pious pity mov’d;
No breast its anguish yet conceals,
For one so well belov’d.
Let no unhallow’d tongue, or servile slave,
Their partial clamour vent beyond the grave;
But let the noble Dead his honours wear;
His fault deplore, his virtue still revere:
Tho’ err he did, he finish’d the debate,
With his own blood, and Radclyffe’s fair estate.
The aged farmer, tott’ring o’er the green,
Leans on his staff, recounts the days he’s seen:
Informs the list’ning youth by his record,
How bless’d his roof, how plenteous was his board;
Nor rack’d by Derwent’s hospitable lord.
He stops his tale, involv’d in grief profound;
He sighs, he weeps, and feebly strikes the ground;
Cries, why rehearse these golden days of yore,
Since they to me, to me can be no more!
The clement heart, and curious, often calls
To view the naked park, and stripped walls:
E’en the damp walls their stony tears impart,
As if their master’s wound had pierc’d their heart.
Ye pensive mutes, ’tentive on Dilston wait,
And mourn, eternal Radclyffe’s tragic fate!