On the Death of the Late Princess Amelia
Farewell Amelia, much lamented maid,
Torn from thy parents in the bloom of years;
Whose mournful state our rising joy forbade,
And steeped a nation's jubilee in tears.
In vain the hand of loyalty had twined;
An olive garland for the Monarch's brows;
She knew they days to sharpest pain consigned,
And dropt the wreath, to sooth paternal woes.
No more his subjects, lift to heaven their eyes
In gratitude for his protracted reign;
No more their songs of loyal transport rise,
While list’ning angels stoop to hear the strain.
But all in silence bending o’er thy bier,
Thy filial, his parental love admire,
While pity drops the mild consoling tear,
Forgets the sovereign, and bewails the sire.
Nor less the mother claims her soothing care;
The sister’s sorrows, or the brother’s grief;
Nor she who every joy refused to share,
To give a sister’s lengthened pains relief.
But while they weep, methinks from yonder skies,
Thy sainted spirit, robed in white appears;
With heavenly radiance bursts upon their eyes,
And thus in gentle phrase reproves their tears.
“Weep not my friends, your loved Amelia’s soul,
No more a prisoner in its earthly cell;
At length it has attained the happy goal,
In purest bliss eternally to dwell.”
“Condemned to waste my life in lingering pain,
Condemned to see my loved companion weep,
To heal your wounds, or burst my mortal chain
I should have welcomed an eternal sleep.”
“But now removed to this celestial sphere,
Woe past to joy imparts a higher zest.
Your health and happiness my only care
My only wish, like me to see you blest.”
“Thro heavenly mercy then unceasing try,
To gain a passage to this happy shore,
Where if we meet, we meet to highest joy,
We meet, ecstatic thought, to part no more.”
Elvira