THE EXILE.
Ay, Tyrants, build your Babels! forge your fetters! link your chains!
As brims your guilt-cup fuller, ours of grief ebbs to the drains;
Still, on the Cross, your crowns of thorn for Freedom's Martyrs twine;
Still batten on live hearts and madden o'er the hot blood-wine.
Murder men sleeping, or awake torture them dumb with pain,
And tear, with hands all bloody red, the vesture of the slain!
Your feet are on us, Tyrants—strike! and hush Earth's wail of sorrow:
Your sword of power, so red to-day, shall kiss the dust to-morrow.
O! but 'twill be a merry day the world shall set apart,
When Strife's last brand is broken in the last crowned Despot's heart!
And it shall come,—despite of Rifle, Rope, and Rack, and Scaffold,
Once more we lift undaunted brows, and battle on unbaffled.
Our hopes ran mountains high, we sang at heart, wept tears of gladness,
When France, the bravely beautiful, dashed down her sceptred madness;
And Hungary her one-hearted race of mighty heroes hurled
In the death-gap of nations, as a bulwark for the world.
O Hungary! gallant Hungary! very glorious wert thou,
That rose up with the beauty of the morning on thy brow.
And Rome,—who, while her heroes bled, felt her old breast heave higher,—
How her eyes reddened with the flash of all their Roman fire!
Mothers of Children, who shall live the Gods of future story,
Your blood shall blossom from the dust, and crown the world with glory.
Ye'll tread them down yet, Curse and Crown! uplift the trodden Slave,
And Freedom shall be sovran in the courts of Fool and Knave.
Wail for the hopes that have gone down! the life so freely spilt!
Th' Eternal Murder still sits throned and crowned in damning guilt:
Still in God's golden sun the Tyrant's bloody banners burn,
The Priests,—Hell's midnight Thugs!—to their soul-strangling work return!
See how the Oppressors of the Poor with serpents hunt their blood;
Hear, from the dark, the groan and curse go maddening up to God.
They kill and trample us poor worms, till earth is dead men's dust;
Death's red tooth daily drains our hearts, but end, ay, end it must.
The herald of deliverance leaps in the womb of Time;
The Poor's grand army treads the Age's march with step sublime.
Ours is the mighty future! and what marvel, brother men,
Should the devoured of ages rise and turn devourers then?
O! brothers of the horny hand see through your tears and smile,
The World is rife with sound of fetters snapping 'neath the file;
I lay my hand on England's heart, and in each life-throb mark,
The pealing thought of freedom ring its Tocsin in the dark.
I see the Toiler hath become another Gospel's Preacher,
And, as he wins a crust, stands proudly forth, the true world-teacher;
He still toils on, but, Tyrants, 'tis a mighty thing when Slaves,
Who delve their lives into their work, know that they dig your graves!
Anarchs! your doom comes swiftly! brave and eager spirits climb,
To ring Oppression's death-knell from the old watch-towers of time;
A spirit of resistless might is stirring at this hour,
And thought is burning in men's eyes with more than speechful power.
Old England cease the mummer's part! wake, Starveling, Serf, and Slave!
Rouse in the majesty of wrong, as kindred of the brave!
Speak, and the world shall answer, with her voices myriad-fold,
And men, like Gods, shall grapple with the giant-wrongs of old.
Now, Mothers of the people, give your babes heroic milk;
Sires, soul your sons for daring deeds, no more soft thews of silk;
Great spirits of the mighty dead take shape, and walk our mind,
Their glory smites our upward look, we seem no longer blind;
They tell us how they broke their bonds, and whisper, “So may ye:”
One sharp, stern struggle, and the Slaves of centuries are free!
The people's heart, with pulse like cannon, panteth for the fray,
And Brothers, dead or living, we'll be with you in that day.
