A Jacobite’s Epitaph

TO my true king I offered, free from stain,   
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.   
For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away,   
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.   
For him I languished in a foreign clime,           
Grey-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.   

Thomas Babington Macaulay