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

Yes, ye green hills that to my soul restore
The verdure which in happier days it wore!
And thou, glad stream, in whose deep waters laved
Fathers, whose children were not then enslaved!
Yes, I have roam'd where Freedom's spirit fires
The stern descendants of self-exiled sires;
Men who transcend the herd of human kind
A foot in stature, half a man in mind.
But tired, at length, I seek my native home,
Resolved no more in gorgeous wilds to roam;

315

Again I look on thee, thou loveliest stream!
And, seeming poor, am richer than I seem.
Too long in woods the forest-Arab ran,
A lonely, mateless, childless, homeless man;
Too long I paced the ocean and the wild—
Clinging to Nature's breast, her petted child:
But only plough'd the seas to sow the wind,
And chased the sun to leave my soul behind.
But when hot youth's and manhood's pulses cool'd,
When pensive thought my failing spirit school'd—
Lured by a vision which, where'er I rove,
Still haunts me with the blush of earliest love—
A vision, present still, by night, by day,
Which not Niagara's roar could chase away—
I left my palace, with its roof of sky,
To look again on Hannah's face, and die,
I saw, in thought, beyond the billow's roar,
My mother's grave—and then my tears ran o'er!
And then I wept for Hannah, wrong'd, yet true!
I could not—no—my wasted life renew;
But I could wiselier spend my wiser years,
And mix a smile with sinking vigour's tears.

II.

Sweet Village! where my early days were pass'd!
Though parted long, we meet—we meet at last!
Like friends, embrown'd by many a sun and wind,
Much changed in mien, but more in heart and mind.

316

Fair, after many years, thy fields appear,
With joy beheld, but not without a tear.
I met thy little river miles before
I saw again my natal cottage door;
Unchanged as truth, the river welcomed home
The wanderer of the sea's heart-breaking foam;
But the changed cottage, like a time-tried friend,
Smote on my heart-strings, at my journey's end.
For now no lilies bloom the door beside:
The very houseleek on the roof hath died;
The window'd gable's ivy-bower is gone,
The rose departed from the porch of stone;
The pink, the violet, have fled away,
The polyanthus, and auricula!
And round my home, once bright with flowers, I found
Not one square yard—one foot of garden ground.

III.

With gun in hand, and insolence of eye,
A sun-burn'd menial, as I came, drew nigh;
By might empower'd small felons to deter,
Constable, publican, and warrener.
He met me, muttering—“I should know this tramp;”
He pass'd me, muttering “Vagabond” and “Scamp!”
And, as a beadle eyes a thief, he cast
A keen glance at the cottage, as he pass'd.

317

My brother dwelt within. 'Tis true, he took
My offer'd hand, but froze me with a look
So trouble-worn and lost, so hard yet dull,
That I shrank from him, though my heart was full;
I sought society, but stood alone;
I came to meet a man, and found a stone!
His wife, in tatters, watch'd the fireless grate;
Three boys sat near her, all in fierce debate,
And all in rags—but one constructing snares,
With which, at night, to choke Lord Borough's hares.
My sister, Rose, had parish-pay, they said,
And Ann was sent abroad, and Jane was dead;
And these misfortunes laid my sire beside
The mother, who in better days had died.
Such welcome found the wanderer of the deep!
I had no words—I sobb'd, but could not weep.

IV.

Well, here I am, resolved to view the land—
Inquire and ponder—hear and understand.

V.

The cucking-stool is gone, the stocks remain—
Why either or not both? Ye stocks, explain!
Changed scene! Unchanged yon frosted tower remains;
Beneath the hill, it peers o'er vales and plains;

318

And, like a patriarch of the olden time,
Sees age around, but none like his sublime.
Ere yon huge house, with jail-like frown, displaced
The wild brier roses of the thymy waste,
There, near the church, the stocks, and cucking-stool,
Abode the sovereign of the village school.
A half-faced man, too timid for his trade,
And paid as timid men are ever paid;
He taught twelve pupils for six pounds a-year,
Made a consumption, and was buried here.
None said of him, he reap'd the crop he grew,
And lived by teaching what he never knew.
His school is gone—but still we have a school,
Kept by an ignoramus—not a fool;
For o'er his mansion, written large, we see
“Mister John Suckemwell's Academy;”
A boarding-school, where gentlemen are taught
To write fine copies, which the teacher wrote!
Behold the usher!—I behold and start!
For in his face I read a broken heart.
Servant of servants! brow-beat by a knave!
Why for a coffin labour like a slave?
Better break granite on the King's highway
Than earn, with Porson's powers, a pauper's pay!
Why die to live? I know a wiser plan—
An easier too—black shoes, and be a man!

319

VI.

Village! thy butcher's son, the steward now,
Still bears the butcher on his burly brow.
Oft with his sire he deigns to ride and stare;
And who like them, at market or at fair?
King of the Inn, he takes the highest place,
And carves the goose, and grimly growls the grace.
There, in the loud debate, with might—with might—
Still speaks he last, and conquers still the right;
Red as a lobster, vicious as his horse,
That, like its master, worships fraud and force;
And, if the stranger 'scape its kick or bite,
Lowers its vex'd ears, and screams for very spite.
“He hath enough, thank God, to wear and eat;
He gives no alms”—not e'en his putrid meat;
“But keeps his cab, whips beggars from his door,
Votes for my Lord, and hates the thankless poor.”

VII.

Hail, Sister Hills, that from each other hide,
With belts of evergreen, your mutual pride!
Here reigns, in placid splendour, Madam Grade,
Whose husband nobly made a plum in trade;
And yonder glitters Rapine's bilious slave,
The lucky footman of a palaced knave;

320

Stern foe of learning, genius, press, and pen,
Who lauds all laws that ruin honest men.
Sublime in Satrap-imitating state,
She for her daughter seeks a titled mate;
None other, not an angel wing'd from heav'n,
Could woo, or ask to woo, and be forgiv'n.
Too oft, perhaps, she calls her neighbour “Scrub!”
Yet justly scorns the mean corruption-grub;
For many a “ruptured Ogden” hath he wrong'd,
Long gloating on the captive's chain prolong'd.
He hates and apes her pomp, with upstart haste;
But what in him is pride, in her is taste.
She, queen-like, smiles; he, blustering, crams and treats,
And weighs his greatness by the trout he eats.
She never dogg'd a beggar from her lawn,
And he would hang all dogs that will not fawn.
Yet, Clerk of taxes, Magistrate, and Squire,
Why to be Premier may not he aspire?
But what is he that haunts this upstart's door—
Yon fat, good fellow, who detests the poor—
Yon mass of meanness, baseness, grease, and bone—
Yon jolly soul, that weighs just eighteen stone?
Unmatch'd in quibble, great in If and But,
Sublime in cant, superlative in smut;
He jests as none but British worthies can,
Laughs at despair, spurns, tramples fallen man,

321

Condemns misfortune for its wrongs and woe,
And bids his victim thank him for a blow.
Sworn friends are they, Squire Woolpack and Squire Brush;
One is their creed—“Impoverish! torture! crush!”
Behold two models, unexcell'd on earth,
Of British wisdom, loyalty, and worth!

VIII.

Broad Beech! thyself a grove! five hundred years
Speak in thy voice of bygone hopes and fears;
And mournfully—how mournfully!—the breeze
Sighs through thy boughs, and tells of cottages
That, happy once, beneath thy shadow gazed
On poor men's fields, which poor men's cattle grazed!
Now, where three cotters and their children dwelt,
The lawyer's pomp alone is seen and felt;
And the park-entrance of his acres three
Uncrops the ground which fed a family.
What then? All see he is a man of state,
With his three acres, and his park-like gate!
Besides, in time, if times continue dark,
His neighbour's woes may buy his gate a park.
O, then, let trade wear chains, that toil may find
No harvests on the barren sea and wind;
Nor glean, at home, the fields of every zone,
Nor make the valleys of all climes his own;

322

But, with the music of his hopeless sigh,
Charm the blind worm that feeds on poverty!

IX.

Lo; where the water-caster once abode,
The pinfold, erst his garden, skirts the road!
His ample cot, erewhile not ample call'd,
Is now with lath and lime partition-wall'd:
The humble dwelling of the leech divine
Makes six large styes for thirty human swine.
Oh! could he see what woes his house contains,
What wretched remnants cram its broken panes,
How would he swell with righteous rage, and ban
Ice-hearted Law's forced charity to man!
For warmer heart than his did never beat!
Duped by himself, yet hated he deceit;
And, pleased, he taught my boyhood how to draw
The woe-marked cowslip, and the thrush-loved haw;
And how to make sweet pictures of wild flowers,
Cull'd in lone lanes, when glow'd the sultry hours,
Then press'd, and dried, and all on lawn dispread,
To look as infants do, that smile when dead.
Learnèd he was: nor bird nor insect flew
But he its leafy home and history knew;
Nor wild-flower deck'd the rock nor moss the well
But he its name and qualities could tell.
Yes, he was learnèd—not with learning big,
Like yon budge doctor of the whip and wig,

323

Who writes in Latin, sucks the sick select,
Speaks in the Babylonish dialect,
And drives his pair. Great man, sir!—all who thrive
Are cured of colds and cash, by Doctor Drive.
Behold his mansion, southward of the grove,
Complete with coach-house—piggery—alcove!
And, mark! the entrance hath an air of state—
Not copied from the lawyer's park-like gate!

X.

Two stone-throws from the Hall of Doctor Drive,
And from the village Workhouse four or five,
Where the swung Turkey, with its plumage rough,
Welcomes all loyal men who drink enough,
The flying curate lodges—doom'd to say
Three well-known sermons every Sabbath-day.
His donkey, like a rat without a tail,
Cost fifty shillings, and o'er hill and dale
Bears his lean master, at a hunter's pace,
Duly as comes his weekly steeple-chase.
The rector—a queer plural, one and three,
Yet not quite singular in trilogy—
Who, scandal says, is cousin to my Lord—
Would pay him better, but he can't afford.
He lives, they say, in London, and so forth;
His country house is somewhere in the North.
Mine host much miss'd him when he left the lodge,
For fewer warrants summon Jem and Hodge.

324

XI.

Hail, ancient Inn! once kept by Margaret Rose,
Ere England's wrongs began, and labour's woes;
Inn of the Happy Village! where, of old,
Before the bright yule log, my father told
His well-known story of the wolf and child,
While—not at him—the tickled youngsters smiled;
And sturdy peasants, and the annual guest,
Praised the stout ale, but thought their own was best.
When Margaret reign'd, no wanderer pass'd thy door:
Dame Margaret's heart felt ever for the poor;
And, well they knew, to homeless son or sire
She ne'er denied a seat beside the fire,
Nor cursed away the widow, stooping low
Beneath the double weight of age and woe.
But times are changed and alter'd is the inn,
For God is wroth, and Britain rife with sin.
The village, happy once, is splendid now!
And at the Turkey reigns, with knotted brow,
Stiff as a mile-stone, set up in his bar,
Vice-regal Constable and Bailiff Marr,
Who nods his “yes,” and frowns his fatal “no.”
Woe to the scrimp that ventures near him, woe!
He, she, or it—“swag's nifle, skink, or trull,”
Shall find a bed, or Wakefield's gaol is full!

325

Great man, John Marr! He shoots—or who else may?
He knows my Lord, is loyal, and can pay.
The poor all hate him, fear him—all save one;
Broad Jem, the poacher, dreaded is by John.
To draw him drink, objects nor man nor maid;
The froth is brought, Jem winks, and John is paid;
For John, who hates all poachers, likes poor Jem,
While Jem, so kind to others, growls at him;
And when their fierce eyes meet, the tax-made slave
Quakes in his inmost soul, if soul he have,
Thinking of weasand slit by lantern light,
Or slug bang'd through him at the dead of night.
Yet great is he! rich, prudent, tried, and true:
He snores at sermon in his curtain'd pew—
He knows the Steward—he is known afar
To magistrates and bums—great man, John Marr!

XII.

Where yon red villa flares before the wood,
The cottage of my Hannah's father stood;
That woodbined cottage, girt with orchard trees,
Last left, and earliest found, by birds and bees:
And where the river winds, gnarl'd oaks between,
Squatter'd his drake, and diving ducks were seen;
While scotting hares oft sought this summit bare,
If lightning glinted through the glooming air.

326

But where dwells Hannah now? And where is he?—
Gone, like the home of her nativity.
And what vain dame, and what suburban Thane,
The site of Hannah's lovely home profane?
Who dash'd the plum-trees from the blossomy ridge?
From bank to bank, who threw the baby bridge,
Where the huge elm, which twenty bullocks drew,
Plank'd o'er with ash, and rootless, sternly grew,
While plumy ferns wept o'er the waters dark,
Sad for his fall; and, rooted in his bark,
A world of mosses forested the side
Of that fall'n Forest King, to soothe his pride?
What dandy Goth the heaven-made arch displaced,
To show in painted spars his want of taste?
A mortgaged magnate and a sage is he:
His maxims have a deep philosophy.
“Hateful,” he saith, “and vulgar is the flat,
Who deigns to see a poor man touch his hat,
Or serves a beggar, though her curtsey fall,
Or of the rabble does not take the wall.”
Squire Grub is proud—for pride and meanness blamed,
Yet poor as proud, and of his wants ashamed.
Lo! there he struts—the silk-legged King of Cant!
Who thanks the Blessèd powers for crime and want,
Prays to his Demon of Despotic sway
And hymns his God of Carnage! Let him pray!
Yes, pray for strength or weakness, to sustain
The weight of scorn that will crush in his brain,

327

Ere from the Workhouse, like a ghost, he go
To mate with madmen, in their den of woe,
And tell them that he is not poor—not he;—
But lord of vast estates—in Chancery!

XIII.

Path of the quiet fields! that oft of yore
Call'd me at morn, on Shenstone's page to pore:
O poor man's footpath! where, at evening's close,
He stoop'd, to pluck the woodbine and the rose,
Shaking the dew-drops from the wild-brier bowers,
That stoop'd beneath their load of summer flowers,
Then eyed the west, still bright with fading flame,
As whistling homeward by the wood he came;
Sweet, dewy, sunny, flowery footpath, thou
Art gone for ever, like the poor man's cow!
No more the wandering townsman's Sabbath smile—
No more the hedger, waiting on the stile
For tardy Jane—no more the muttering bard,
Startling the heifer, near the lone farm-yard—
No more the pious youth, with book in hand,
Spelling the words he fain would understand,
Shall bless thy mazes, when the village bell
Sounds o'er the river, soften'd up the dell:
But from the parlour of the loyal inn,
The Great Unpaid, who cannot err nor sin,

328

Shall see, well-pleased, the pomp of Lawyer Ridge,
And poor Squire Grub's starved maids, and dandy bridge,
Where youngling fishers, in the grassy lane,
Purloin'd their tackle from the brood-mare's mane—
And truant urchins, by the river's brink,
Caught the fledged throstle as it stoop'd to drink—
Or with the ramping colt all joyous play'd,
Or scared the owlet in the blue-bell'd shade.

XIV.

Churl Jem! why dost thou thrust me from the wall?
I hack no cab, I sham no servant's hall:
Coarse is my coat:—how have I earn'd thy curse?
Suspectest thou there's money in my purse?
I said, “Good day, sir,” and I touch'd my hat:
Art thou, then, vulgar, as the Sage is flat?
Alas! that Sage sees not in thy fierce eyes
Fire-flooded towers, and pride, that shrieks and dies;
The red-foam'd deluge, and the sea-wide tomb;
The arm of vengeance, and the brow of doom;
The grin of millions o'er the shock of all—
A people's wreck, an empire's funeral!