University of Virginia Library

THE YEAR OF SEEDS.

1848.

I.

Toy of the Titans! Tiny Harp! again
I quarrel with the order of thy strings,
Establish'd by the law of sonnet-kings,
And used by giants who do nought in vain.
Was Petrarch, then mistaken in the strain
That charms Italia? Were they tasteless things
That Milton wrought? And are they mutterings
Untuneful, that pay Wordsworth with pleased pain?
No. But I see that tyrants come of slaves;
That states are won by rush of robbers' steel;
And millions starved and tortured to their graves,
Because as they are taught men think and feel;
Therefore, I change the sonnet's slavish notes
For cheaper music, suited to my thoughts.

II.

Far uplands, gleaming suddenly, advance;
And under the broad moon their farthest snows
Shine like the sunbright lakes of new-found lands;
While from her forehead she her dark hair throws,
And (lord of midnight,) the rapt poet stands
Mute as the Roman, from the shore of France
Gazing on Britain o'er the virgin sea;
And weaving then the fates that were to be,
For generations, times, and climes, and strands,
Unknown and unconceived. Oh, unborn Year!
Disclose the comings which the past commands,
The joy, the woe, the crime, the hope, the fear,
That bid the future join the ages gone,
Still uttering the eternal mandate, “On!”

III.

In the mark'd hut, whose flamed-up smoke declares
That morn approaches, heavily snores one
Who loves the moon, and seldom sees the sun:
Upon his chested picklocks, gun, and snares,
He sits, and nods. Starting, he wakes, and stares
Red as the fire, after his boys, who run
Through the quick-closing door, into the dun
Cold road, for warmth; while his gloom'd wife prepares
His morning supper. Why do men deny
His right to live by honest labour? Why,
Ev'n as the desert's tiger, is he free?
Gamekeeper once, now poacher, (When to be
Burglar and cutthroat?) the world's worst he dares;
Because he stole one of our Master's hares!

IV.

Why do the tears swell in his gloom'd wife's eyes?
To her and hers he is already lost.
Oh, conscious river, crisping in the frost!
Thou snow, that stiflest echo! and ye skies,
Alive with stars, that seem to watch the glade,
And, there, some object, that all ghastly lies!
The last night of the dying Year hath seen
Two widows and twelve orphans newly made!
And Law will have another victim soon.
Not ten yards from our Lady's wayside spring;
Where daisy-rill, iced o'er, is glittering,
The lover's gate, and gospel-thorn between;
Upon its back lies stark a horrid thing,
With dead eyes staring at the ghastly moon.

V.

Not die? Who saith that Nature cannot die?
Everywhere spreadeth, all things covereth
Echoless, motionless, unbounded snow
The vagrant's footfall waketh no reply:
Starved wretch! he pauseth—Whither would he go?
He listeneth finger-lipp'd, and nothing saith
Of all the thoughts that fill'd his soul with woe,
But, freezing into stiffness, lacketh breath.
Dumb deadness pilloweth day on every hill.
Earth has no sound, no motion the dead sky;
No current, sensible to ear or eye,
The muffled stream's unconquerable will.
The pulse of Being seemeth standing still;
And January is the King of Death.

VI.

Give not our blankets, tax-fed Squire, to him,
Thy willing pauper, with the dangerous brow!
He is not worthier, generous Squire, than thou,
But stronger far, and sound in wind and limb.
Know'st thou yon widow? She is wise and chaste;
And comely, though her famish'd eyes wax dim.
Her husband built a house upon the waste,
And lost it: they who found it should make haste
With help for her who, else, will die to-day.
She hath no blankets! and no parish-pay:
But she hath frosted feet, a fireless grate,
A well-swept floor—by neighbour's feet untrod!
Tears, which are ice; a starved dog, a clean plate,
Her wedding ring, her bible—and her God!

VII.

Ralph Leech believes (and he can read and write,)
That Conference Sunday-schools have saved the nation.
He would compel the dark to seek his light,
Yet hates, for freedom's sake, state-education.
That corn laws are “Man's wisdom, and God's mercy;”
That Prairie is the Book of Common Prayer;
And that one Shakspeare is a fat old Player;
He doubts no more than that Canton's in Jersey.
Though cold the night, how fast his chapel fills!
Why? Sir De Suckem hath a message sent,
Urging the Suckems of the People's Cause
To prop Saint Suckem's Navigation laws;
Therefore, our friends petition Parliament
Against cheap sugar, slavery, and steam mills!

VIII.

All hail, Westknab! Great Kinder! Blakelowscar!
Stanedge! Winhill! Storm's Blackstone! From afar
When ye come forth in ether clear and still,
Sad tidings ye convey to Hargate-rill
Of coming wreck and elemental war.
While broadens the bright sun, or noontide star;
As if, corrupted by their uncurb'd will,
The lofty and the bright rejoiced in ill.
So, when drew nigh doom'd Britain's baleful hour,
Portents of mightiest Evil Spirits cast
Dire brightness on the face of Evil Power;
And love and labour, heart-struck, stood aghast,
While horror wrote, beneath th' affrighted sky
A blood-red warning for eternity.

IX.

Rivers are torrents, vales and plains are lakes,
When February draws her curtains down.
Rain! rain! The universal snow forsakes
Moorland and mountain, forest, farm, and town.
Rain! Rain! it pours, it pours. Red land-floods drown
Blue ocean's baffled tide. With calm cold frown,
The cold grey rock, that saw death's cradle, wakes
From his old dream of drowth, to find his home
In cloud-hung deluge. The old forest shakes
His wrinkled forehead o'er the whirling foam
Of inland sea; and with the haste that takes
Life's sad last blessing, down the revels come
Of sky and upland, mix'd in cataract
That rioteth in waste, like one who long hath lack'd.

X.

How like the clear, bright ether, which brings fire,
Wind, rain, and darkness, is the cruel eye
Of plotting Statecraft! Everywhere conspire
Thrones, and thy despotlings, Feudality,
To crush the hopes of Freedom everywhere.
The spoil of nations is their common fund.
Their first card was the baffled Sonderbund;
They play'd and lost! and still to lose prepare.
But thou art reckless, Orleans! pause awhile.
Thou wilt not? Play, then. Ye again have lost,
Kings of the robb'd! and at your proper cost,
Must risk, henceforth, your stakes and trumps of guile.
What, though your Kinglings, in themselves a host,
Will pack your cards? They tremble, while they smile.

XI.

Oh, that the winds of March could wither up
The never-sleeping treachery of Kings!
What, though Commotion hath the whirlwind's wings,
If blind Misrule is still the Unwithstood?
What, though wrong'd men have startled Fraud and Force,
If the leagued dynasties of Foot and Horse
Brood o'er a new Niagara of blood,
And drunken Waste still hugs her empty cup?
Hark, how the World's benetted miscreancies
Chaunt their growl'd slang, for altar, jail, and throne,
While in the Bael of sworded villanies
Each paltry despotling protects his own!
Proving the soundness of the saw accursed,
That little tyrants always are the worst.

XII.

Cold sneerers, dead to pity, lost to shame!
It came, it cometh, “the tremendous gloom,”
That hurl'd the sire-dethroner to his doom;
God whispers—Hark! he names “The dreaded Name
Of Demogorgon!” Still your wolfish laws
Bare chain'd Prometheus to your vulture-claws;
And hope ye to escape the Torturer's fate?
Though long delay'd, it cometh, as it came!
It cometh—and will find you taught too late,
Soul-chaining, chain'd in soul, repentant never,
Darkest, yet darkening! Then, the fated frown
Will cast ye deep beneath all darkness down,
And brighten'd by your infamous renown,
All other infamy look bright for ever.

XIII.

Hath April wept herself into a dream
Of wondrous joy? or a reality
Fairer and brighter than all dreaming? Deem
Not lightly, Bard, of her regality
In goodness. Lo, the beautiful are strong!
Lo, gentlest-love is power, whose noiseless stream
Keeps fresh the sea of life, which else would teem
Only with plagues! Oh, gold-bill'd Ouzle's song!
Hath love's still might waked thee? Love's April! coldly
Primrosy airs breathe round thee. Clouds behold thee,
And mix thy music with their blushes. Morn,
Dew-glistening Morn, is silvering rock and tree,
While shadows shorten o'er the whitening thorn,
Perch'd on whose topmost-twig the woodwele hymneth thee.

XIV.

Red evening, in her green-and-silver robes,
Looks from the uplands on the lakes below,
O'er realms of hawthorn, white with little globes
In which is folded up May's fragrant snow.
With closing eyes, to sleep the daisies go;
Beneath the fire-flower'd broom awakes the hare;
And gentle winds are waiting, fain to blow
News of the open'd rose to sons of care
Who toil for coffins! where the brave despair.
There, lo, in Trade's dark street, his trade of woe
The ever-weary village-genius plies!
Poor Boy! he sees not that he daily dies;
Though oft he longs to see the pink'd flower grow
Where, wing'd with love's glad strength, the wheeling plover cries.

XV.

Oh, many-window'd House, whose light is gloom!
A homeless youth (brought by despair, to die
Where hope comes not,) pants in thy upper room,
And sees the May-Day lark ascend the sky;
But flower of May shall never meet his eye,
Nor mate the earth-worm's all-forgotten guest.
No. She who would have call'd the golden broom,
Or hawthorn-flower, to love him in the tomb,
Hath long been haven'd where the weary rest.
Who sees him weep? Who hears his latest sigh?
What hireling fiend mocks twice his parting groan?
His sire, his sister, the last friend, are gone
To Sin's Australia, where the bad thrive best;
And in a crowded world, he dies alone.

XVI.

Not here, not here! I beg it as a boon;
If ye dare weep and hope to be forgiv'n,
Lay not the poet of the village here,
Where comes no sunlight, save the grin of noon!
But to that grave-yard, full of peace and heav'n,
Where, not unhonour'd, rests a village seer,
(Who lived beloved, to die forgotten soon,)
Bear ye the child of flowers. Oh, lay him near
His grandsire's bones! for thither—when the wind
Bends the young twig, or shakes the old leaf down—
May stray (too scornful of the plunder'd town,)
Some hopeful, worth-respecting bard sublime.
Who (in man's ashes honouring human kind,)
May read the name of both, and do it into rhyme.

XVII.

Why? If the unremember'd are a crew
That yet will number all beneath the sun,
Though words outlive the evil that men do,
And written be their names in blood and flame,
Ev'n of the famous famed shall be not one!
Why lingers, then, on his greystone, the name
Of one whom all forget? Moss, water, air,
Day, night, ask Why? And our poor hearts declare
That ev'n this record is a sort of fame!
But though mute words may hallow long the spot
Where the forgotten say, “Forget us not,”
We write on graves the heart's last wish in vain!
And dust and lime, at last, alone remain
Where mind that was can never be again.

XVIII.

Would they were written, (and in heaven they are,)
The patient deeds of men of low estate!
Esteem'd so little, but how truly great!
When will their modest beams be hail'd afar,
And peacefully smile down the pomps of war?
Oh, when will Labour's weary sons descry,
Illumining with love an equal sky,
The honour'd rays of Toil's eternal star?
I know that our Redeemer lives; I know
That well He marks our strife with want and fear;
Our long-assured inheritance of woe!
I know that his good angels love to write
Our humblest deeds in everlasting light;
But Here Men Toil For Man's Redemption Here!

XIX.

And, Wordsworth, yet, thy soul, in good-abounding,
Will brim a world-wide cup, with purest good,
And be to sever'd lands a saviour flood,
(Not the loud-sounding, but the ever-sounding!)
With wafted blessings lonest isles surrounding:
The gentle ripple, and its low, sad wind,
Have found materials which the wise shall find
Broad cities of the just on all shores founding.
Grand is thy temple for the soul-freed slave,
“With its foundations laid beneath the grave!”
And safe the bud which thou “with dewdrops shieldest!”
Then, hymn not thou pomp's pagan-priests and stalls;
Doom'd statecraft's doom'd religion of stone walls!
Such things are cold dead rubbish, “where thou buildest.”

XX.

Not that there is no greatness in the fane
That homes the spirit of man's deepest dread;
Chapel, Morai, Cathedral! Not in vain
The temple built with hands its roof hath spread
Beneath th' unpillar'd blue, wherever rain
Falls, or fire burns. For if the sleepless main
Clasps not an isle man-peopled to his breast;
But there some tokens of Hope's doubt attest
The deathless sov'reignty of Death and Pain,
Great is the least! as will the greatest be,
When moss shall creep o'er London's homeless walls,
And, taught by nation-humbling funerals,
The Pilgrim of the Future there shall see
Dead Worship's Skeleton! and pausing sigh, “Saint Paul's!”

XXI.

Church of the Hamlet! thy grey tower and thee
Coeval elms hide from the passer-by:
Temple within a temple! thou can'st see,
Unseen thyself, the pilgrim, quietly
Seated below; or coming funeral;
Or wedding-party's quicker pace, to me
Sadder than funeral's slow solemnity,
Its young, white bearers, or its sable pall.
But I tread on thy graves. Lo, freshly blown,
June's trellised flowers o'er-top the ancient wall
Of the good curate's garden! peeping down,
As if to read, with me, on stones moss-grown,
Names of the dead! whose doings none recall;
Whose doom—Oblivion! is the doom of all.

XXII.

Though thou no cloud in breezeless heav'n beholdest,
Foreshowing Gentianella! from the clown
Thy bright intensity of blue thou foldest;
And he, assured of rain, his scythe lays down.
Hast thou no deeper knowledge? Say, for right
Strove roused France vainly? Shall the Muscovite
From Fiume steam for London? Eager, here,
To wreathe with thorn the patriot-martyr's crown,
And vaunt base scorn of hated Liberty,
The feudal horde snuffs coming mischief. Peer,
And squire, (and would-be squire and peer,) agree
To ban the wretch who struggles to be free;
And, grinning, shrug the yet-unknouted shoulders
That may be bared, ere long, to strange beholders.

XXIII.

Oh, can July with woodbines ring her fingers,
And crown with roses her too regal head,
While, pale as snow, distracted Freedom lingers,
Gazing on cities where her best have bled?
Worriers of Nations! render up your dead!
Calabrian Polecat! many dead are thine:
Twice on thy people's heart's blood hast thou fed.
Cur of Vienna! can thy teeth be red
With Roman gore, and desolation's wine,
And thou a Cæsar? Be thou, then, the last
That Roman will endure, or Europe see.
Oh, Etna's Isle! Rome! Venice! Italy!
Among your martyr's bones these vermin cast,
And on their doings let them feast or fast.

XXIV.

The footprints of departed life remain
For hours, or years, or age-long years of years,
On sand, clay, stone. Thus, chroniclers of tears
Die, but not so Time's History of Pain.
Rooted on graves, Truth bears a living flower!
Man may forgive, but wounds their scars retain
As warnings! and the Powers of Good ordain
That to forget shall not be in our power.
For worst ills, too, have roots: they are the fruit
Of plotted action worn to habitude;
And the grey dynasties of Force might live,
Safe in their privilege of fraud and feud,
If agony died recordless and mute,
And to forget were easy as forgive.

XXV.

The heath-flower reddens. Purple Guttergrub,
To slay the moorcock cometh, fierce and fighty.
King of a dog-cart, and his shooting-club;
Sublime in conflict with starved berry-getters;
And teaching poor folks to respect their betters;
He thinks he is, at least, the King Almighty.
How like a toothless bitch that fain would bite, he
Calls freetrade-humbugs “Scoundrel, Scamp, and Scrub!”
Yet, like a thief who sees a constable,
He drops, when blustering most, his under jaw!
Ho, every slave from Perth to Dunstable,
Take from your looms and plates this magnate's paw,
And he shall yet become of lawless Law
The best Reformer that the world e'er saw!

XXVI.

Seven-Childed Widow! are thy boys at home?
Why, singly, seek'st thou food on wastes of stone?
With coward outrage Kinglingdom hath sown
Even the desert! and they dare not come,
Though they are starving! Therefore, doth she roam
God's keeper'd Moor, eager to sell for bread
Its only crop. But, Tyrant-sparing Heav'n!
Down come the hills—a sea of fire and foam!
The small speck covereth Light, as with a shroud.
Thou art a Night of clouds, thou little cloud!
Who into lightning, with his heavy tread,
Stamps the blind darkness, o'er the mountains spread?
Where is the Mother of the starving seven?
She shrieks! Deaf Deluge seizeth her. She's dead.

XXVII.

August! 'tis passing pleasant to behold
Thy rising cornstack, and exulting wain;
Or, while the workers gather in the grain,
Gaze on thy seas of life-sustaining gold;
Or, wake the grey of earliest morn, and climb
Up to thy mountain'd wildernesses cold,
When nought is moving on the silent wold,
Except the shadow of heaven's only cloud.
Who would not seek thy solitudes sublime,
To tread their shoreless purple all alone.
And of their proud solemnity be proud?
Surely, the heart were made of steel or stone,
That did not feel their grandeur, and confess
“The might, the majesty of loneliness.”

XXVIII.

We are not lonely, Kinderscout! I stand
Here, with thy sire, and gaze, with him and thee,
On desolation. This is Liberty!
I want no wing, to lift me from the land,
But look, soul-fetter'd, on the wild and grand.
Oh, that the dungeon'd of the earth were free
As these fix'd rocks, whose summits bare command
Yon cloud to stay, and weep for Man, with me!
Is this, then, solitude? To feel our hearts
Lifted above the world, yet not above
The sympathies of brotherhood and love?
To grieve for him who from the right departs?
And strive, in spirit, with the martyr'd good?
“Is this to be alone?” Then, welcome solitude.

XXIX.

Month of the fire-tinged leaves! why shall December
Scatter them, saying, “Honour to the strong?”
Quietest Month of Robin Redbreast's song!
Month of its sweetest quietness, September!
Thought's Month! pale townsmen, stretch'd in pain, remember
Thy second bloom of dewy flowers, and long
In vain, to wander with the golden gorse,
Where heav'n's blue brightens, and thy blue bells throng
Over the uplands. Village children learn
Early, to seek them there. The poor man's horse
Rejoices, too; and while the gorgeous fern
Deepens the glory of thy yellow wastes,
The sad-brow'd gipsy to their greenness hastes,
And to thy fountain'd swamps the worm-fed birds return.

XXX.

Art thou a colourist? Mark, how yon red
Poppy, and that bright patch of yellow broom,
Cliff-borne above green depths and purply gloom,
Like spark and blaze on smiling darkness shed,
Give and take beauty! Mark, too, overhead,
How the rich verdure of this ancient tree,
And the deep purple of the bank agree
To thrive in partnership! And while the bed
Of the clear stream, through tints of every hue,
Lifts its bathed pebbles, lo! to brighten all,
The little harebell brings its bit of blue,
And is a gainer! happy to behold
Red blessing green, and purple gilding gold;
Of light and shade a marriage festival!

XXXI.

Ay, startle with the sound of falling leaves
Yon white-hair'd man, October! he, like thee,
To summer's glowing brightness fondly cleaves,
And doom'd no more of hope's glad crew to be,
Speaks of his mournful doom reproachfully.
His year hath gather'd in its golden sheaves.
The weary wretch complains, that he must sleep.
Because his work is done, the idler grieves;
Because he can no longer get or keep
The things that call on men to toil and weep.
Then, let thy far-off sea-voiced winds growl out
Their “Here-we-come!” forestalling accents deep
Of Doom's dread trumpet! when the heav'ns will shout,
“Hasten to Judgment, Child of Death and Doubt!”

XXXII.

Flower-weeping April starts to life again,
When arch October for November weaves
A wedding garment in a shroud of tears.
'Tis made of pearlets splinter'd from the rain;
Or dewdrops shaken from the nodding spears
That guard the cold roots of the bare blackthorn;
And flowers (like April's) hasten to adorn
Its mix'd hues, won from sunset. Through fall'n leaves
The primrose peeps! homed where the wren abides;
The violet, too! that would be loved, yet hides
Her beauty, dark with passion; and the whin,
Pale want's rough friend, laughs out to all “Good Morrow,”
And calls no child of woe a child of sin,
But, April-blossom'd, hoards a smile for sorrow.

XXXIII.

November's marriage-peal, far off, is booming:
The bridegroom's face is sorrowfully glooming;
He saith, “December's chilling mist is coming!”
His gait is feeble, and his back is bow'd.
The sad wind suddenly its moaning husheth;
Hark! scarcely heard, the unseen runlet gusheth!
But soon again the moaning wind outrusheth,
And seemeth bickering with some mournful cloud.
Beneath the sickly moon the owl is flying;
Not to the misty moon the owl is crying;
Not to the owl the startled rat replying:
November married April, and is dying!
Near him, his young bride patiently is sighing;
And, lo, the moon hath cast away her shroud!

XXXIV.

Alas, Victoria! Nation-loved Regina!
Thy Kinglings make their infamy our own.
England! where now is saviour-sold Messina?
Slain are her sons, her palaces o'erthrown.
Thy felon Steuart was not mean and base
As Blum's destroyer. Give him, then, thy hand,
Thou loathed of Nature! Dost thou know the land
In which the loathing earth-worm slinks not down,
When sad winds name thee, near her dwelling-place?
Betrayer of Mankind in Freedom's name!
Who doth not think of thee and thine with shame?
The damn'd of old, redeem'd by thy disgrace,
Brighten in hell. The angels suffer pain,
Blushing for thee, where Eliot, Hampden, Vane,
Ask of each other, “Died we, then, in vain?”

XXXV.

Methinks, I see thy bravest of the brave
Pale on his blighted deck. Whom tends he there?
The woman-fiend who serves a devil-queen,
And that queen's husband. On the deep they stare!
For, lo, upright, starts from his watery grave
One, whose death-pangs two there have caused and seen!
Shrieks the King-miscreant, “What with us wants he?”
And all see death! two, death and infamy!
Tired Hell's Deputed Traitress! thy worst foe,
When execration writes thy vilest deed,
Could not in damning story wish to read
A sadder trilogy of words of woe
Than “Britain! Nelson! Carracciolo!”
And yet thou seem'st not vile as thou would'st be!

XXXVI.

Realm-Stealing Patron of all states and men!
Thy flag the sign of peace-pretended war,
Wherever flying! would that thou could'st see
Thyself as others see thee! Thou would'st, then,
Knowing thyself, see others as they are.
Erin would cease to stench the ocean-wave
With victim-freights of helots, nick-named free;
Nor would that Hell of Nations be thy grave.
Oh, never may she see thee wreck'd with spoil!
A beggar, with all scorn by beggary named!
Pride's meanest cringer! asking leave to toil
Of her, once lowest of earth's poorest poor!
And in thy vileness hounded from her door,
Yet fain to kiss her foot, and not ashamed!

XXXVII.

Tyrants! ye are an unimproving race;
And 'tis the nature of the conquering base
To trample on the helpless till he die:
So, ye have advertised for Kossuth's head!
For Kossuth lives! nor yet is Freedom dead.
Oh, yet her blood will blaze from sky to sky!
Yet, yet o'er Man's Rebellion will be pour'd,
In seas of fire, the universal horde
Whose name is Slave! Then, wilt thou, Destiny,
Write in her blood, o'er blood-quench'd Hungary,
“Here thou hast won the gate of boundless sway;
Steam hence for London, Triple-Million'd Sword!”
Or, on the quenchless heav'ns, “Behold the way
To Petersburgh and Moscow, Liberty!”

XXXVIII.

What said that jailer jail'd, who would have been,
Had he been just, of men the greatest man?
“Europe, ere long, will be republican,
Or Cossack.” What say they, whom we have seen
Risking dominion for their own vile ban?
“Better the Cossack than the artisan!
Better one master, than the public will!”
Ay, dig your mean grave deep, ye swift to screen
Wrong and the wronger! for the self-betray'd
Are God's abandon'd. Ye shall be obey'd.
Long-waiting Nicholas is patient still;
Tending his work of deadliest sin and woe,
And for his neighbours, over plain and hill
Sowing worst weeds, which, ye have sworn, shall grow!

XXXIX.

I dream'd that God was Silence. Air was dead,
And Life a corpse laid out. The clouds had died
Of sunless cold. O'er all things snow was spread,
Mute as the billows of a frozen sea;
And, voiceless, the eternal wind swept wide
Under dumb skies, o'er steel-like sea and land.
Echo herself had perish'd, but reply
From her none needed was, where time forgot
The letters of his name, and sound was not,
And motion soundless; and all victory
Crown'd freezing Death, who, with world-covering hand,
And sword-like pen—and with an inward laugh—
On Mind's vast grave, wrote dead Hope's epitaph
In ice for ink: “Her Dream was Liberty.”

XL.

What Gods are these? Bright red, or white and green,
Some of them jockey-capp'd and some in hats,
The gods of vermin have their runs, like rats.
Each has six legs, four moving, pendent two,
Like bottled tails, the tilting four between.
Behold Land-Interest's compound Man-and-Horse,
Which so enchants his outraged helot-crew,
Hedge-gapping, with his horn, and view-halloo,
O'er hunter's clover—glorious broom and gorse!
The only crop his godship ever grew:
Except his crop of hate, and smouldering ire,
And cloak'd contempt, of coward insult born,
And hard-faced labour, paid with straw for corn,
And fain to reap it with a scythe of fire.

XLI.

Lo, here comes farmer Nimrod, on his grey!
Eager his victim's well-earn'd hate to brave,
And proud to be a tyrant and a slave,
He damns his feeders twenty times a day:
“What right to think of his concerns have they?”
Well can he bear the trader's land-made cares:
“Happy the poor,” quoth he; “for thrive who may,
A comfortable Workhouse still is theirs.”
Yet swaps he not his happiness for ours!
But in the page that lauds his right to wrong,
Reads weekly, That Trade's gains to him belong;
For what the country grows, the town devours!
“He needs nor towns, nor trade! but traders eat;
And they must pay his price! or he will grow no wheat.”

XLII.

All white below, and brightly blue above!
A fitting temple for Eternal Love,
December's World of snow and sky! art thou.
The groinings of its roof no stone require;
The spangles of its dome are worlds of fire;
Its pillars are the Everlasting Now.
Throned on his deeds, He reigns—by all beheld,
By all obey'd; soul-felt, and soul-adored,
And soul-proclaim'd; of Life and Death the Lord!
I kneel to Him in reverence, not in fear;
And on his forehead, easy to be spell'd,
Read his great precept, “Let the soul be free.”
Oh, God of Works! why should I worship here
A god of words, when I can worship Thee?

XLIII.

With words for chains, in links of prose or rhyme,
We proudly fix the Homeless in his place;
Naming Eternity, we think of time;
Naming Infinity, we think of space;
Of the worm's path, whose crawlings we can trace
On vast immutabilities of dust;
The deathless monuments of human trust,
Which passing hours, or moments, still efface.
Proud of our foolscap, and its jangled bells;
Blind to the All-Apparent, All-Unknown,
Who tips with suns his spires and pinnacles;
Our ignorance on our vanity we enthrone,
And in a little chapel of our own
Creep to the worship of dead syllables.

XLIV.

Blind leaders of the blind, by blindness led,
Men say to God, and his Eternal Year,
“Stop! it is finish'd! let your rushing skies
Rein in their fiery steeds, and be at rest.”
Yet do our altars stand, though built of sod!
Then, scorn not Error. Dateless is the faction
That, if they could, would bridle Mind's career,
And eagerly erase the words of light
O'er Truth's wide portals written to be read:
“All things that are, or were, are thought in action,
The testing of the Thinker's theories;
And they who limit knowledge, do their best
To stop, or hinder, Progress Infinite,
The Wisdom and the Happiness of God!”

XLV.

The morning of the last day of the year
Instructs me that my course is nearly run.
I thank Thee that I see another sun,
Father of Seasons! that I still am here
To do thy will; and that the dawn is near
Of a New Life for me. What have I won
In worthy strife? What good work unbegun
Awaits me? Father, I must soon appear
Before Thee, to be sentenced. If I strove
In kindness, I am safe. What is our own?
That only which we build for Thee and thine.
Who shall reap love, unless he sow in love?
If I have labour'd for myself alone,
I need no lock'd strong coffer: Nought is mine!

XLVI.

The evening of the Year's last day is come;
And on pale Erin's face, (but not like one
Who hath no hope,) with lingering gaze, the sun
Looks, pausing still to look. There is no bloom
On her closed lips, no passion on her brow;
Yet never seem'd she beautiful as now!
And pride and grandeur deepen in the gloom
Which his large brow casts o'er her winding-sheet
And lifeless locks. The blue sky is her tomb,
The sea her bier. “We part,” he says, “to meet;
Yet shalt thou live, and love, be bless'd, and bless;
Yet shalt thou—holy, happy, changed—arise.”
And he thanks God! with splendor-flashing eyes,
And firier fervor in his thankfulness.

XLVII.

Night! starless Night! thick darkness, floor'd with snow!
If this be death, the Soul of Things repairs,
In death, the strength by which th' immortals reign,
And suffering truth to be a martyr dares:
If this be death, in death the mind prepares
The growths of larger thought than yet hath been,—
The unconceived, that shall be felt and seen,
And bow the heav'ns, to lighten toil and pain:
If this be death, through death to life we go!
For what is death, but sleep in starless night?
In sleep, the childless sees her son restored;
In sleep, the widow clasps again her lord;
And sleep gives blissful tears to hopeless woe:
Then, why should Death the pillow'd soul affright?

XLVIII.

Answer me, Fear! Thou in the depths dost dwell
In darkest depth; for light is dark to thee,
And noon concealeth the dread Mystery
Which men call nothingness, and fate, and hell.
Profoundest Fear! who, closing thy wide eyes,
Beholdest God! and two eternities!
And shriek'st. “The One! The sole Infallible!”
Brave Trembler! Thou, who seek'st, and fear'st to find,
The Cause Uncaused of mindless things and mind,
The Unapproach'd, Unsearchable, Alone!
If pain thou know'st, if weakness knows thee well,
And if thy weakness is unmeasured might,
Answer me! Why should helpless Death affright
The Lifter of the Veil of the Unknown?

XLIX.

What doth it cover? Mystery and Thee.
Life Everlasting, and All-vital Sleep,
That Mystery is, and evermore will be.
Thou art all passions, all in one, dark Fear!
All passions of all men, the bond and free,
Whether they love, or hate, or laugh, or weep;
For all would have, and all who have would keep.
Then, lift the veil, and thy own features see
Beneath it, thou strong servant of Love's might!
Taught by the Progresser to show Man here
God's face in goodness only, and the right;
Reading his Name in darkness which is light;
And ever summoning the infinite
Of age-long moments, to complete his Year!

L.

And to the Father of Eternal days,
And fairest things, that fairer yet will be,
Shall I no song of adoration raise,
While Passion's world, and Life's great agony,
Are one dread hymn, dread Progresser! to Thee?
Thou, Love, art Progress! And be thine the praise
If I have ever loved thy voice divine,
And o'er the sadness of my slander'd lays
Flings its redeeming charm a note of thine.
Oh, Gentlest Might Almighty! if of mine
One strain shall live, let it thy impress bear;
And please wherever humble virtues twine
The rose and woodbine with the thorns of care,
Thriving because they love! Thy temple, Lord, is there!