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More verse and prose

By the Cornlaw Rhymer [i.e. Ebenezer Elliott]. In two volumes

Elliott, Ebenezer (1781-1849)

VOL. II.

LYRICS FROM “LIFE ACCORDING TO LAW,” AN UNPUBLISHED OPERA.

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TO ------

Read again thy prize-paid, sneaking
Flattery of the basely mean?
Who wins prize, but he that's reeking
With the taint of souls unclean?
Shall I, on my kind's prostration
Waste the hour that should be bless'd?
Hoarded for mute conversation
With the best thoughts of the best!
If my trust in man is shaken,
By thy trust in wrong-divine,
Vilely is thy greed mistaken
In this gold-edg'd gift of thine.

“Born-thralls are we?” The blood rushes
To my forehead.—When wilt thou
Pay me for these burning blushes,
And the heart's pang on my brow?
Criticise thee? Let them praise thee
Who praise turncoats, turn'd anew.
None could lower, and I can't raise thee;
Turncoat Yellow! Turncoat Blue!
Backward go to worse from better
They alone whom badness feeds:
Steal ye fire, to forge a fetter?
Roses would ye turn to weeds?
Sloe to plum improv'd not rashly:
Time bears blessings on his flood!
Honour, then, thy go-back Ashley,
While we grow the greatest good.
Lives in every leaf and blossom
Might that mocks Romanzoff's power:
Worship thou his barren bosom!
I will tend my little flower.
Spite of thee, on this I anchor:
Man by Man shall still be bless'd!
Man, and Man's! till strife and rancour
Sink, in love, to endless rest.

The magnum bonum, a plum bigger and better than his ancestors, if he is descended from the sloes, as Mr. Adams suggests, in his masterly article on Human Progress.