University of Virginia Library

CORN-LAW RHYMES.

SONG.

[Where the poor cease to pay]

SONG.

[Child, is thy father dead?]

THE DEATH FEAST.

The birth-day, or the wedding-day,
Let happier mourners keep:
To Death my vestal vows I pay,
And try in vain to weep.
Some griefs the strongest soul might shake,
And I such griefs have had;
My brain is hot—but they mistake
Who deem that I am mad.
My father died—my mother died—
Four orphans poor were we;
My brother John work'd hard, and tried
To smile on Jane and me.
But work grew scarce, while bread grew dear,
And wages lessen'd too;
For Irish hordes were bidders here,
Our half-paid work to do.
Yet still he strove, with failing breath
And sinking cheek, to save
Consumptive Jane from early death—
Then join'd her in the grave.
His watery hand in mine I took,
And kiss'd him till he slept;
Oh, still I see his dying look!
He tried to smile, and wept!
I bought his coffin with my bed,
My gown bought earth and prayer;
I pawn'd my mother's ring for bread—
I pawn'd my father's chair.
My Bible yet remains to sell,
And yet unsold shall be;
But language fails my woes to tell—
Even crumbs were scarce with me.
I sold poor Jane's grey linnet then—
It cost a groat a-year;
I sold John's hen—and miss'd the hen,
When eggs were selling dear:
For autumn nights seem'd wintry cold,
While seldom blazed my fire;
And eight times eight no more I sold
When eggs were getting higher.
But still I glean the moor and heath;
I wash, they say, with skill;
And Workhouse bread ne'er cross'd my teeth—
I trust it never will.
But when the day on which John died
Returns with all its gloom,
I seek kind friends, and beg, with pride,
A banquet for the tomb.
One friend, my brother James, at least,
Comes then with me to dine;
Let others keep the marriage-feast,
The funeral feast is mine.
For then on them I fondly call,
And then they live again!
To-morrow is our festival
Of Death, and John, and Jane.
E'en now, behold! they look on me,
Exulting from the skies,
While angels round them weep to see
The tears gush from their eyes!
I cannot weep—why can I not?
My tears refuse to flow:
My feet are cold—my brain is hot—
Is fever madness?—No.
Thou smilest, and in scorn—but thou,
Couldst thou forget the dead?
No common beggar courtsies now,
And begs for burial bread.

ELEGY.

O Huskisson! O Huskisson!
O Huskisson, in vain our friend!
Why hast thou left thy work undone?
Of good begun is this the end?
Thou should'st have lived, if they remain
Who fetter'd us, and hated thee.
O Huskisson, our friend in vain!
Where now are hope and liberty?
Thou should'st have lived, if with thee dies
The poor man's hope of better days.
Time stops to weep, but yet shall rise
The sun whose beams shall write thy praise.
The widow weeps—but what is she,
And what her paltry common woe?
Worlds weep—and millions fast for thee.
Our hope is gone! why didst thou go?
Pleased hell awhile suspends his breath,
Then shouts in joy, and laughs in hate;
And plague and famine call on death
Their jubilee to celebrate.
A shadow bids improvement stand,
While faster flow a nation's tears.
O dead man! with thy pallid hand,
Thou rollest back the tide of years!

THE RECORDING ANGEL.

THE TREE OF RIVELIN.

The lightning, like an Arab, cross'd
The moon's dark path on high,
And wild on Rivelin writhed and toss'd
The stars and troubled sky,
Where lone the tree of ages grew,
With branches wide and tall;
Ah! who, when such a tempest blew,
Could hear his stormy fall?
But now the skies, the stars are still,
The blue wave sleeps again,
And heath and moss, by rock and rill,
Are whispering, in disdain,
That Rivelin's side is desolate,
Her giant in the dust!
Beware, O Power! for God is great,
O Guilt! for God is just!
And boast not, Pride! while millions pine,
That wealth secures thy home;
The storm that shakes all hearths but thine
Is not the storm to come.
The tremor of the stars is pale,
The dead clod quakes with fear,
The worm slinks down o'er hill and vale,
When God in wrath draws near.
But if the Upas will not bend
Beneath the frown of Heaven,
A whisper cometh, which shall rend
What thunder hath not riven.

INSCRIPTION,

FOR A TABLET IN THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ.

Last of a race of giants, lived De Foe,
First champion of commercial liberty!
Where lie his bones? He died—'tis all we know,
Save that he lived and died in penury;
And, sorrowing, paid to unrelenting hate
That debt which envy ne'er forgives the great.
Hampden! De Foe! Cromwell! and Milton! When
Shall twenty years boast four such names again?—
But which was greatest? Great was he who fell—
The rebel Hampden; great and terrible
He who well merited the crown he dared;
Mighty the novelist; sublime the bard,
That blind old man of London! With their deeds
The world still rings as age to age succeeds;
But which will longest bask in glory's smile?
The tale of Paradise—or that of Crusoe's isle?

REFORM.

LINES

WRITTEN IN AN EDITION OF COLLINS, WITH ETCHINGS BY PLATT.

Struck blind in youth, Platt ask'd the proud for bread;
He ask'd in vain, and sternly join'd the dead.
I saw him weep—“Hail, holy light!” he cried;
But living darkness heard him, and he died.
Oh, by the light that left too soon his eyes,
And bade him starve on ice-cold charities;
Doom'd is the wealth that could no pittance spare,
To save benighted genius from despair!
These etchings, Platt, alone remain of thee!
How soon, alas! e'en these will cease to be!
But poesy hath flowers that ever bloom;
And music, though she seal'd thy cruel doom,
Shall sing a ballad o'er her pupil's tomb.

BATTLE SONG.

Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark;
What then? 'Tis day!
We sleep no more; the cock crows—hark!
To arms! away!
They come! they come! the knell is rung
Of us or them;
Wide o'er their march the pomp is flung
Of gold and gem.
What collar'd hound of lawless sway,
To famine dear—
What pension'd slave of Attila,
Leads in the rear?
Come they from Scythian wilds afar,
Our blood to spill?
Wear they the livery of the Czar?
They do his will.
Nor tassell'd silk, nor epaulette,
Nor plume, nor torse—
No splendour gilds, all sternly met,
Our foot and horse.
But, dark and still, we inly glow,
Condensed in ire!
Strike, tawdry slaves, and ye shall know
Our gloom is fire.
In vain your pomp, ye evil powers,
Insults the land;
Wrongs, vengeance, and the cause are ours,
And God's right hand!
Madmen! they trample into snakes
The wormy clod!
Like fire, beneath their feet awakes
The sword of God!
Behind, before, above, below,
They rouse the brave;
Where'er they go, they make a foe,
Or find a grave.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1832.

See, the slow Angel writhes in dreams of pain!
His cheek indignant glows!
Like Stanedge, shaking thunder from his mane,
He starts from his repose.
Wide, wide, his earthquake-voice is felt and heard;
“Arise, ye brave and just!”
The living sea is to its centre stirr'd—
And, lo! our foes are dust!
The earth beneath the feet of millions quakes;
The whirlwind-cloud is riv'n;
As midnight, smitten into lightning, wakes,
So waked the sword of Heav'n.
The angel drew not from its sheath that sword;
He spake, and all was done!
Night fled away before the Almighty word,
And, lo!—the sun! the sun!

THE TRIUMPH OF REFORM.

WRITTEN FOR THE SHEFFIELD POLITICAL UNION.

THE PRESS.

WRITTEN FOR THE PRINTERS OF SHEFFIELD, ON THE PASSING OF THE REFORM BILL.

God said—“Let there be light!”
Grim darkness felt his might,
And fled away;
Then startled seas and mountains cold
Shone forth, all bright in blue and gold,
And cried—“'Tis day! 'tis day!”
“Hail, holy light!” exclaim'd
The thund'rous cloud, that flamed
O'er daisies white;
And, lo! the rose, in crimson dress'd,
Lean'd sweetly on the lily's breast;
And, blushing, murmur'd—“Light!”
Then was the skylark born;
Then rose th' embattled corn;
Then floods of praise
Flow'd o'er the sunny hills of noon;
And then, in stillest night, the moon
Pour'd forth her pensive lays.
Lo, heaven's bright bow is glad!
Lo, trees and flowers all clad
In glory, bloom!
And shall the mortal sons of God
Be senseless as the trodden clod,
And darker than the tomb?
No, by the mind of man!
By the swart artisan!
By God, our Sire!
Our souls have holy light within,
And every form of grief and sin
Shall see and feel its fire.
By earth, and hell, and heav'n,
The shroud of souls is riven!
Mind, mind alone
Is light, and hope, and life, and power!
Earth's deepest night, from this bless'd hour,
The night of minds is gone!
“The Press!” all lands shall sing;
The Press, the Press we bring,
All lands to bless:
O pallid Want! O Labour stark!
Behold, we bring the second ark!
The Press! the Press! the Press!

THE EMIGRANT'S FAREWELL.

England, farewell! we quit thee—never more
To drink thy dewy light, or hear the thrush
Sing to thy fountain'd vales. Farewell! thy shore
Sinks—it is gone! and in our souls the rush
Of billows soundeth, like the crash and crush
Of hope and life. No land! all sky and sea!
For ever then farewell! But may we blush
To hear thy language, if thy wrongs or thee
Our hearts forget, where screams o'er rock and tree
The Washingtonian eagle! In our prayers,
If we forget our wrongers, may we be
Vile as their virtues, hopeless as their heirs,
And sires of sons whom scorn shall nickname theirs!—
And to such wolves leave we our country? Oh
The heart that quits thee, e'en in hope, despairs!
Yet from our fathers' graves thy children go
To houseless wilds, where nameless rivers flow,
Lest, when our children pass our graves, they hear
The clank of chains, and shrieks of servile woe
From coward bones, that, e'en though lifeless, fear
Cold Rapine's icy fang, cold Havock's dastard spear.

A POET'S PRAYER.

Almighty Father! let thy lowly child,
Strong in his love of truth, be wisely bold—
A patriot bard, by sycophants reviled,
Let him live usefully, and not die old!
Let poor men's children, pleased to read his lays,
Love, for his sake, the scenes where he hath been;
And, when he ends his pilgrimage of days,
Let him be buried where the grass is green;
Where daisies, blooming earliest, linger late
To hear the bee his busy note prolong—
There let him slumber, and in peace await
The dawning morn, far from the sensual throng,
Who scorn the windflower's blush, the redbreast's lonely song.