The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott :: :: University of Virginia Library

Bone-weary, many-childed, trouble-tried!
Wife of my bosom, wedded to my soul!
Mother of nine that live, and two that died!
This day, drink health from Nature's mountain bowl;
Nay, why lament the doom which mocks control?
The buried are not lost, but gone before.
Then, dry thy tears, and see the river roll
O'er rocks, that crown'd yon time-dark heights of yore,
Now, tyrant-like, dethroned, to crush the weak no more.

The young are with us yet, and we with them:
O thank the Lord for all He gives or takes—
The wither'd bud, the living flower, or gem!
And He will bless us when the world forsakes!
Lo! where thy fisher-born, abstracted, takes,
With his fix'd eyes, the trout he cannot see!
Lo, starting from his earnest dream, he wakes!
While our glad Fanny, with raised foot and knee,
Bears down at Noe's side, the bloom-bow'd hawthorn tree.

Dear children! when the flowers are full of bees;
When sun-touch'd blossoms shed their fragrant snow;
When song speaks like a spirit, from the trees
Whose kindled greenness hath a golden glow;
When, clear as music, rill and river flow,
With trembling hues, all changeful, tinted o'er
By that bright pencil which good spirits know
Alike in earth and heaven—'tis sweet, once more,
Above the sky-tinged hills to see the storm-bird soar.

'Tis passing sweet to wander, free as air,
Blythe truants in the bright and breeze-bless'd day,
Far from the town—where stoop the sons of care
O'er plans of mischief, till their souls turn grey,
And dry as dust, and dead-alive are they—
Of all self-buried things the most unbless'd:
O Morn! to them no blissful tribute pay!
O Night's long-courted slumbers! bring no rest
To men who laud man's foes, and deem the basest best!

God! would they handcuff Thee? and, if they could
Chain the free air, that, like the daisy, goes
To every field; and bid the warbling wood
Exchange no music with the willing rose

For love-sweet odours, where the woodbine blows
And trades with every cloud, and every beam
Of the rich sky! Their gods are bonds and blows,
Rocks, and blind shipwreck; and they hate the stream
That leaves them still behind, and mocks their changeless dream.

They know ye not, ye flowers that welcome me,
Thus glad to meet, by trouble parted long!
They never saw ye—never may they see
Your dewy beauty, when the throstle's song
Floweth like starlight, gentle, calm, and strong!
Still, Avarice, starve their souls! still, lowest Pride,
Make them the meanest of the basest throng!
And may they never, on the green hill's side,
Embrace a chosen flower, and love it as a bride!

Blue Eyebright! loveliest flower of all that grow
In flower-loved England! Flower, whose hedge-side gaze
Is like an infant's! What heart doth not know
Thee, cluster'd smiler of the bank! where plays
The sunbeam with the emerald snake, and strays

The dazzling rill, companion of the road
Which the lone bard most loveth, in the days
When hope and love are young? O come abroad,
Blue Eyebright! and this rill shall woo thee with an ode.

Awake, blue Eyebright! while the singing wave
Its cold, bright, beauteous, soothing tribute drops
From many a grey rock's foot, and dripping cave;
While yonder, lo, the starting stone-chat hops!
While here the cotter's cow its sweet food crops;
While black-faced ewes and lambs are bleating there;
And, bursting through the briers, the wild ass stops—
Kicks at the strangers—then turns round to stare—
Then lowers his large red ears and shakes his long dark hair.

The Germander Speedwell.