The Battle-Day and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Forth to the fight! thou shining sword of song!
Sing, sing the toil, that makes the toiler strong.
Sing, how the peasant, after well-fought field,
Where sun-gilt legions to his sickle yield,
Reluctant turns from willing work to part,
In body wearied, but yet fresh in heart.
His the glad labour, that but strengthens more,
Braces the frame and bids the spirit soar;
His the pure life, gives loftier feeling scope,
The harvest gratitude, the seed-time hope!
For him the orchards bloom, the corn-fields nod,
And these are altars where he worships God.
Not thus the pale mechanic, hapless slave,
Digs for a master's wealth his own dark grave,

Who sows in misery, and reaps in pain,
The harvest, garner'd for another's gain;
Unknown amid the bustling crowd sinks down,
A martyr! but without a martyr's crown!
Turn from the sight—and see what joys abide,
What comfort by the cottager's fireside:

Before the expiring embers' fitful light
Watches a wife, a mother, through the night,
Her fair brow hung with care's cold drapery white;
Her thoughts upon a desert of hope's dearth,
A dying heart beside a darkening hearth.

The deaf had known each sound that came and went,
By the quick shudder through her slight form sent
At the light footstep of the elfish blast,
Who tapped against the window as he passed;
Or hollow laugh from clouds, the stars' black hearse,
When dies their light before the thunder's curse.

Eager she listens every sound to catch!—
'Tis but the tempest's hand upon the latch.
Unconsciously she moves from spot to spot,
Or gazes on her babe, but sees it not!
Is that pale prison of an anxious life
The boast of womanhood—a peasant's wife?
At length a rude hand strikes the cottage door,
A boisterous foot is on the shaking floor,
A lofty form, but care-worn now and thin,
Enters, as though the tempest had poured in:
With fevered face, with glances fierce and wild,
The husband greets the mother and the child.
The babe starts from its sleep with cry of fear,
The fond wife casts a smile upon a tear,
And throws her arms around that form so proud,
As a pale moonbeam clasps a thunder-cloud.
His heart a prison, with a chaos fraught,
His hearth neglected, and his brain untaught,
Half-stifled curses smouldering in his breast,
'Tis thus the British peasant seeks his rest.