The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince Edited by R. A. Douglas Lithgow |
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WINTER MUSINGS. |
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 | The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince |  |
285
WINTER MUSINGS.
Stern Winter time! thy shrouded skies oppress me,
And fling funereal shadows o'er my brain:
Sad thoughts and visions, spectre-like, distress me,
And waken all my sympathies to pain;
Sad thoughts of yonder multitudinous city,
Where care too often festers into crime:
Where hearts heave out their life for lack of pity,
Or, living, dread thy coming, Winter time!
And fling funereal shadows o'er my brain:
Sad thoughts and visions, spectre-like, distress me,
And waken all my sympathies to pain;
Sad thoughts of yonder multitudinous city,
Where care too often festers into crime:
Where hearts heave out their life for lack of pity,
Or, living, dread thy coming, Winter time!
Sad thoughts of sinful and pestiferous places,
Where love, hope, joy, breeze, sunlight, never comes;
Where pen and pencil never lend their graces,
Nor common comforts quiet, to their homes—
Oh! no, not homes, but dens—where God's own creatures
Creep through the roughest ways of lowest life;
Where untaught minds make savage forms and features,
And hold perpetual fellowship with strife.
Where love, hope, joy, breeze, sunlight, never comes;
Where pen and pencil never lend their graces,
Nor common comforts quiet, to their homes—
Oh! no, not homes, but dens—where God's own creatures
Creep through the roughest ways of lowest life;
Where untaught minds make savage forms and features,
And hold perpetual fellowship with strife.
Sad thoughts! that virtue and that vice together
Stir the thick air with curses and with groans,
Pine through the day, and in the fiercest weather
Herd nightly on the cold and cruel stones;
Or desperate men put off their fear and starkness,
To wreak their vengeance on some guiltless head;
Or women, roaming through the storm and darkness,
Barter their beauty for dishonoured bread.
Stir the thick air with curses and with groans,
Pine through the day, and in the fiercest weather
Herd nightly on the cold and cruel stones;
Or desperate men put off their fear and starkness,
To wreak their vengeance on some guiltless head;
Or women, roaming through the storm and darkness,
Barter their beauty for dishonoured bread.
286
Even where royalty, oppressed with splendour,
Free as the humblest from repulsive pride,
While ready hands and willing hearts attend her,
Walks in her gardens beautiful and wide—
There, even there, with gorgeous wealth surrounded,
The lost, the scorned, the outcasts of their kind,
Lie down a heap of indigence confounded,
Fellows in misery, if not in mind.
Free as the humblest from repulsive pride,
While ready hands and willing hearts attend her,
Walks in her gardens beautiful and wide—
There, even there, with gorgeous wealth surrounded,
The lost, the scorned, the outcasts of their kind,
Lie down a heap of indigence confounded,
Fellows in misery, if not in mind.
Sad thoughts! that in yon town's bewildering mazes,
Dark veins far stretching from its giant heart,
Man in his saddest moods and sternest phases
Lives from all healthy influence apart:
Souls that have missed their way lie there benighted,
With all their sensual instincts wild and bare;
And hearts, once prone to love, are warped and blighted
For lack of genial sustenance and care.
Dark veins far stretching from its giant heart,
Man in his saddest moods and sternest phases
Lives from all healthy influence apart:
Souls that have missed their way lie there benighted,
With all their sensual instincts wild and bare;
And hearts, once prone to love, are warped and blighted
For lack of genial sustenance and care.
Fathers sit brooding on the threatening morrow,
With looks of anger kindling into hate;
And mothers, with a mute, but deeper sorrow,
Cease to resist the thraldom of their fate:
Children, grown prematurely old, are pining
In apathetic squalor, day by day;
Round their young natures vicious weeds are twining,
Which thrust the flowers of purity away.
With looks of anger kindling into hate;
And mothers, with a mute, but deeper sorrow,
Cease to resist the thraldom of their fate:
Children, grown prematurely old, are pining
In apathetic squalor, day by day;
Round their young natures vicious weeds are twining,
Which thrust the flowers of purity away.
Perchance, within those lazar-dens of riot
Insidious sickness saps the shattered frame:
Where is the yielding couch, the room of quiet?
The pensive taper-light's unfailing flame?
Where is the cleanly hearthstone, blithely glowing?
The cordial offered ere the lips request?
Where are affection's eyes, with grief o'erflowing?
The forms that wait, yet fear, the final rest?
Insidious sickness saps the shattered frame:
Where is the yielding couch, the room of quiet?
The pensive taper-light's unfailing flame?
Where is the cleanly hearthstone, blithely glowing?
The cordial offered ere the lips request?
Where are affection's eyes, with grief o'erflowing?
The forms that wait, yet fear, the final rest?
287
Where is the skilful leech, man's health-director,
With words of honey all unmixed with gall?
The pastor praying to the great Protector,
Without whose will a sparrow cannot fall!
Alas! not there! no love, no skill, no teaching,
Touches with hopeful light the hour of gloom,
The lorn wretch thinks high heaven beyond his reaching,
And, dying, braves the horrors of his doom!
With words of honey all unmixed with gall?
The pastor praying to the great Protector,
Without whose will a sparrow cannot fall!
Alas! not there! no love, no skill, no teaching,
Touches with hopeful light the hour of gloom,
The lorn wretch thinks high heaven beyond his reaching,
And, dying, braves the horrors of his doom!
Strange contrast! lo! yon lofty windows brighten
From chambers as an eastern vision fair,
Where lips and eyes with pleasure smile and lighten,
While song and music thrill the throbbing air;
Where Art hath brought her triumphs and her graces,
The glowing canvas, and the breathing stone;
Where rich refinements from a thousand places
Are tributes from the lands of every zone.
From chambers as an eastern vision fair,
Where lips and eyes with pleasure smile and lighten,
While song and music thrill the throbbing air;
Where Art hath brought her triumphs and her graces,
The glowing canvas, and the breathing stone;
Where rich refinements from a thousand places
Are tributes from the lands of every zone.
There lusty lacqueys round the banquet gliding
With costly dainties court the pampered taste,
While Joy and Plenty o'er the board presiding
See southern nectars run to wanton waste;
There Fortune's idol learns to love and languish,
Swathed in the splendour and the pride of birth,
Uncaring, or unconscious, of the anguish
That bows her lowly sisters of the earth.
With costly dainties court the pampered taste,
While Joy and Plenty o'er the board presiding
See southern nectars run to wanton waste;
There Fortune's idol learns to love and languish,
Swathed in the splendour and the pride of birth,
Uncaring, or unconscious, of the anguish
That bows her lowly sisters of the earth.
And yet there are, beside the hall or palace,
Shapes of humanity, unhoused, unfed,
Untaught, unsought, unheeded, fierce or callous,
The sky their curtain, and the earth their bed:
Shapes which are all of one Almighty's making,
Imploring, threatening, near the rich man's feet,
With sin grown savage, or with sorrow quaking,
Frenzied for food his dogs refuse to eat.
Shapes of humanity, unhoused, unfed,
Untaught, unsought, unheeded, fierce or callous,
The sky their curtain, and the earth their bed:
Shapes which are all of one Almighty's making,
Imploring, threatening, near the rich man's feet,
With sin grown savage, or with sorrow quaking,
Frenzied for food his dogs refuse to eat.
288
“The poor shall cease not,” God's blest word declareth;
But are they less of human mould than kings?
Must they grow faint for what kind Nature beareth,
For what she gives to all her meaner things?
Must they exist in darkness and distraction,
Doubting if Heaven be merciful and just?
Shut out from joy, unnerved for glorious action,
And scarce uplifted from the grovelling dust?
But are they less of human mould than kings?
Must they grow faint for what kind Nature beareth,
For what she gives to all her meaner things?
Must they exist in darkness and distraction,
Doubting if Heaven be merciful and just?
Shut out from joy, unnerved for glorious action,
And scarce uplifted from the grovelling dust?
Formed for all fitting faculties and feelings
By Him who gives the tiniest worm a law,
Who fills His humblest work with high revealings,
Sustains the skies, and keeps the stars in awe,—
Shall they, oppressed with famine and wrong doing,
With crowded cares, and unassuasive pain,
Obey, toil, falter, rush to deeper ruin,
Reason, implore, grow mad, and all in vain?
By Him who gives the tiniest worm a law,
Who fills His humblest work with high revealings,
Sustains the skies, and keeps the stars in awe,—
Shall they, oppressed with famine and wrong doing,
With crowded cares, and unassuasive pain,
Obey, toil, falter, rush to deeper ruin,
Reason, implore, grow mad, and all in vain?
Forbid it, God! who deigns to guide and gift us!
Ye mild and moral principles of right—
Ye liberal souls that labour to uplift us—
Rise up against it with resistless light:
And all ye holy sympathies that slumber
Unstirred, unfruitful in the human breast,
Spring into active phalanx without number,
And give the poor hope, help, and happier rest.
Ye mild and moral principles of right—
Ye liberal souls that labour to uplift us—
Rise up against it with resistless light:
And all ye holy sympathies that slumber
Unstirred, unfruitful in the human breast,
Spring into active phalanx without number,
And give the poor hope, help, and happier rest.
Forbid it, Pen—for thou canst vanquish error;
Forbid it, Press—proud ally of the Pen!
Forbid it, Speech, that carries truth or terror
To the hard bosoms of unthinking men.
Pen, Press, and Speech, creators of opinion—
Opinion armed 'gainst ignorance and wrong—
League all the lands beneath your blest dominion,
Till the glad poet sings a calmer song.
Forbid it, Press—proud ally of the Pen!
Forbid it, Speech, that carries truth or terror
To the hard bosoms of unthinking men.
Pen, Press, and Speech, creators of opinion—
Opinion armed 'gainst ignorance and wrong—
League all the lands beneath your blest dominion,
Till the glad poet sings a calmer song.
| The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince | |