 | The various writings of Cornelius Mathews |  |
XIV.
THE MASSES.
When, wild and high, the uproar swells
From crowds that gather at the set of day;
When square and market roar in stormy play,
And fields of men, like lions, shake their fells
Of savage hair; when, quick and deep, call out the bells
Through all the lower Heaven ringing,
As if an earthquake's shock
The city's base should rock,
And set its troubled turrets singing:—
Remember, Men! on massy strength relying,
There is a heart of right
Not always open to the light,
Secret and still and force-defying.
In vast assemblies calm, let order rule,
And, every shout a cadence owning,
Make musical the vexed wind's moaning,
And be as little children at a singing-school.
From crowds that gather at the set of day;
When square and market roar in stormy play,
And fields of men, like lions, shake their fells
Of savage hair; when, quick and deep, call out the bells
Through all the lower Heaven ringing,
As if an earthquake's shock
The city's base should rock,
And set its troubled turrets singing:—
Remember, Men! on massy strength relying,
There is a heart of right
Not always open to the light,
Secret and still and force-defying.
In vast assemblies calm, let order rule,
And, every shout a cadence owning,
Make musical the vexed wind's moaning,
And be as little children at a singing-school.
But, when, thick as night, the sky is crusted o'er,
Stifling life's pulse and making Heaven an idle dream,
Arise! and cry, up through the dark, to God's own throne:
Your faces in a furnace glow,
Your arms uplifted for the death-ward blow—
Fiery and prompt as angry angels show:
Then draw the brand and fire the thunder-gun!
Be nothing said and all things done!
Till every cobwebbed corner of the commonweal
Is shaken free, and, creeping to its scabbard back the steel,
Let's shine again God's rightful sun!
Stifling life's pulse and making Heaven an idle dream,
Arise! and cry, up through the dark, to God's own throne:
Your faces in a furnace glow,
Your arms uplifted for the death-ward blow—
Fiery and prompt as angry angels show:
Then draw the brand and fire the thunder-gun!
Be nothing said and all things done!
Till every cobwebbed corner of the commonweal
Is shaken free, and, creeping to its scabbard back the steel,
Let's shine again God's rightful sun!
| The various writings of Cornelius Mathews | |