So could Corruption’s phalanx rest composed, While this GREAT COMMONER their acts opposed; And not attempt to lure him to their side, By every means which patronage supplied; The tempting PLACE, the luring TITLE shone, To make the Patriot his friends disown; But when they found their efforts all in vain, The good man to ensnare, his honour stain; Their Pride was roused, they swell’d with angry heat, And lent their aid to push him from his seat; But here again defeated and despised, They only saw how greatly he was prized; Who like a mighty rock in ocean cast, Smiled at the whirlwind, and defied the blast.
Let others boast, the titles _Kings_ create; The flaming riband, or proud coronet; Honors which wear their glories for a day, Oft blushing wear, and swiftly fade away: COKE’S glory found a more substantial base, Which future Patriots shall delight to trace; And while the faithful Portrait they pourtray, See Norfolk’s Patriot live in every trait.
For fifty years spent in politic life, When war and rapine gender’d heat and strife; No venal act of his appears to wound, His virtuous soul, or hurt his conscience sound; No VOTE of his through all that long career, Has caused the widows sigh, the orphans tear; Nor from the Peasant’s industry withdrawn Those heavy taxes grieveous to be borne; Curtail’d his Country’s rights, the laws denied, Unto the injured, by oppression tried; Indemnified the man who did him wrong, Or made the Oligarchal Tyrants strong; Nor when the times perplexed a starving poor, Who sue for pity and for aid implore; Their sad petitions in such deep distress, Denied the means of urging for redress; To their bewailings gave the name of riot, And crushed their rights, to keep the injured quiet. Then if the Virtues which adorn his name, Did not quite fill the trumpet of his fame; ’Twould make no faint addition to the sound, To tell the acts where he could not be found, To lend his name, his voice, his vote to raise, And cloud the Sun of England’s better days; And that which courtiers boastfully have done, Should be his glory to have left undone.
Born for the good of all, his bosom glows, With softest sympathy in all its’ throws; No narrow feeling e’er restrains his grace, Whose heart expansive takes in all his race; No sect or party, rank or state we find, Contract the bounty of his gen’rous mind; To human wretchedness his list’ning ear, Is ever open, and his heart sincere In gen’rous bounty, wafts the swift relief, To whom stern mis’ry overloads with grief; And if he can’t restore the broken heart, His sympathizing bosom bears a part: Thus sensibility his heart to bless, In sweet o’erflowings shews its fine impress; And he who can this balmy balsam share, The better graces nurtures plump and fair: It is the soil in which the Virtues grow, To gild the fields, and paint the vales below; Sow but the seeds, the germs will quickly shoot, And grow luxuriant from the fruitful root; Mature through life, and when the Angels reap, The ripened harvest, in bright worlds will keep; For sympathizing feelings warm the breast, Of heavenly spirits and delight the blest; And when sweet sympathies the bosom move, We most resemble Heaven, for Heaven is love.