EPITAPH ON SIR BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN

AT CALCUTTA

1837

This monument

Is sacred to the memory

Of

SIR BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, Knight, One of the Judges of The Supreme Court of Judicature: A man eminently distinguished

By his literary and scientific attainments, By his professional learning and ability, By the clearness and accuracy of his intellect, By diligence, by patience, by firmness, by love of truth, By public spirit, ardent and disinterested, Yet always under the guidance of discretion, By rigid uprightness, by unostentatious piety, By the serenity of his temper,

And by the benevolence of his heart.

He was born on the 29th September, 1797. He died on the 21st October, 1837.

THE LAST BUCCANEER

1839

THE winds were yelling, the waves were swelling,

The sky was black and drear,

When the crew with eyes of flame brought the ship with.

out a name

Alongside the last Buccaneer.

"Whence flies your sloop full sail before so fierce a gale, When all others drive bare on the seas?

Say, come ye from the shore of the holy Salvador,
Or the gulf of the rich Caribbees?"

"From a shore no search hath found, from a gulf no line can sound,

Without rudder or needle we steer;

Above, below, our bark, dies the sea fowl and the shark, As we fly by the last Buccaneer.

66

To-night there shall be heard on the rocks of Cape de Verde

A loud crash, and a louder roar;

And to-morrow shall the deep, with a heavy moaning,

sweep

The corpses and wreck to the shore."

The stately ship of Clyde securely now may ride

In the breath of the citron shades;

And Severn's towering mast securely now flies fast,
Through the sea of the balmy Trades.

From St. Jago's wealthy port, from Havana's royal

fort,

The seaman goes forth without fear;

For since that stormy night not a mortal hath had sight Of the flag of the last Buccaneer.

EPITAPH ON A JACOBITE

1845

To my true king I offered free from stain
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
For him, I threw lands, honors, wealth, away,
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
For him I languished in a foreign clime,
Gray-haired with sorrow in my manhood's prime;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting-place I asked, an early grave.

O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see.
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

EPITAPH ON LORD METCALFE

1847

Near this stone is laid
CHARLES LORD METCALFE,

A statesman tried in many high offices
And difficult conjunctures,

And found equal to all.

The three greatest Dependencies of the British Crown
Were successively entrusted to his care.
In India, his fortitude, his wisdom,
His probity, and his moderation,

Are held in honorable remembrance
By men of many races, languages, and religions.
In Jamaica, still convulsed by a social revolution,
His prudence calmed the evil passions

Which long suffering had engendered in one class
And long domination in another.

In Canada, not yet recovered from the calamities of civil

war,

He reconciled contending factions

To each other, and to the Mother Country. Costly monuments in Asiatic and American cities Attest the gratitude of the nations which he ruled. This tablet records the sorrow and the pride With which his memory is cherished by his family.