The political and occasional poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed ::

“O Liberty! whose radiant charms
Were so adored by Thebes and Sparta—
Bright patroness of arts and arms,
And authoress of Magna Charta—
Nymph! for whose sake, as we are taught,
In Plutarch's entertaining stories,
Speeches were made, and battles fought,
By Greek and Roman, Whigs and Tories;

“Come hither with your pen and sword,
Your russet garb and mess of pottage;
Leave the wild Arab's wandering horde,
Or the rude Switzer's humble cottage;
Let Lafayette console Lafitte;
Let Congress sit a day without you;
Smile, smile, for once, on Downing Street
I want to write an ode about you!”

She came—she answered. Well I know
The Speaker's awful call to order;

135

I heard, some thirteen years ago,
A sentence from the late Recorder;
I know how hoarse the cheerers are,
When Whig lords prate of right intention;
But, oh! that fearful voice was far
More fearful than the sounds I mention.

“I come,” she said, “the same who erst
Held talk with Xenophon and Plato;
Taught Brutus to be firm, and nurst
The fire of high resolve in Cato;
The same who on your island rock
Have mocked the hand of sceptred power;
Who went with Sidney to the block,
And with the Bishops to the Tower.

“Alas! my handmaids, in such days,
Were Wisdom, Order, and Sobriety;
What loathsome change! My Broughams and Greys
Have dragged me into strange society;
Treason and Strife invoke my name
In their dark plots and drunken quarrels;
I'm growing weary of my fame;
And Jove! how ill I look in laurels!

“I am not what I was; I throw
Prodigious stones in Clare and Kerry;

136

I cheat the Greeks with prudent Joe;
I maximize with sapient Jerry;
Last winter, I confess, I taught
The labouring class the art of arson,
And oft on Sundays I've been caught
With Taylor screaming out “No parson!”

“It's true that still the schoolboy's prayers
Come up to me in so-so Latin;
And still the lying Courier swears
That all my rags are silk and satin;
And I've a friend at Court, I think;
But he will doom me to the halter,
When once he hears me in my drink
Speak out about the throne and altar.

“Farewell! my anguish would defy
E'en Althorp's powers of clear expression;
I'm quite convinced that I shall die
Before the closing of the session;
I'd go with pleasure to the grave;
But oh! the thought is overpowering—
They tell me I am sure to have
An epitaph from Doctor Bowring!”

University of Virginia Library

IV. THE COMPLAINT OF LIBERTY.