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

Lord! taught by Thee, when Caxton bade
His silent words for ever speak;
A grave for tyrants then was made,
Then crack'd the chain which yet shall break.

For bread, for bread, the all-scorn'd man,
With study worn, his press prepared;
And knew not, Lord, thy wondrous plan,
Nor what he did, nor what he dared.

When first the might of deathless thought
Impress'd his all-instructing page,
Unconscious giant! how he smote
The fraud and force of many an age!

Pale wax'd the harlot, fear'd of thrones,
And they who bought her harlotry:
He shook the throned on dead men's bones,
He shakes—all evil yet to be!

The pow'r He grasp'd let none disdain;
It conquer'd once, and conquers still;
By fraud and force assail'd in vain,
It conquer'd erst, and ever will.

It conquers here! the fight is won!
We thank thee, Lord, with many a tear!
For many a not unworthy son
Of Caxton does thy bidding here.

We help ourselves, thy cause we aid;
We build for Heav'n, beneath the skies:
And bless Thee, Lord, that Thou hast made
Our daily bread of tyrants' sighs.

THE PRIMROSE.

Surely that man is pure in thought and deed,
Whom spirits teach in breeze-borne melodies;
For he finds tongue in every flower and weed,
And admonition in mute harmonies;
Erect he moves, by truth and beauty led,
And climbs his throne, for such a monarch meet,
To gaze on valleys, that, around him spread,
Carpet the hall of heav'n beneath his feet.
How like a trumpet, under all the skies
Blown, to convene all forms that love his beams,
Light speaks in splendour to the poet's eyes,
O'er dizzy rocks and woods, and headlong streams!
How like the voice of woman, when she sings

To her beloved, of love and constancy,
The vernal odours, o'er the murmurings
Of distant waters, pour their melody
Into his soul, mix'd with the throstle's song
And the wren's twitter? Welcome then, again,
Love-listening primrose; though not parted long,
We meet, like lovers, after years of pain.
Oh, thou bring'st blissful childhood back to me!
Thou still art loveliest in the lonest place;
Still, as of old, day glows with love for thee,
And reads our heav'nly Father in thy face.
Surely thy thoughts are humble and devout,
Flower of the pensive gold! for why should heav'n
Deny to thee his noblest boon of thought,
If to earth's demigods 'tis vainly given?
Answer me, sinless sister! Thou hast speech
Though silent. Fragrance is thy eloquence,
Beauty thy language; and thy smile might teach
Ungrateful man to pardon Providence.

SPENSERIAN.

[Sun of Destruction; ne'er again arise]

Sun of Destruction; ne'er again arise
The flamy gloom of flaming temples o'er,
To shout thy words of fire beneath red skies,
Athwart fire-gleaming sea, and burning shore—
“Burn, burn, till all is burnèd!” Never more
Let men say, “Light destroys.” No, rather crown
The Good dethroned with beams that shone of yore;
As when a bard, of yet unborn renown,
Casts o'er his deathless page the light of suns gone down.

SPRING.

Again the violet of our early days
Drinks beauteous azure from the golden sun,
And kindless into fragrance at his blaze;
The streams, rejoiced that winter's work is done,
Talk of to-morrow's cowslips, as they run.
Wild apple, thou art blushing into bloom!

Thy leaves are coming, snowy-blossom'd thorn!
Wake, buried lily! spirit, quit thy tomb?
And thou, shade-loving hyacinth, be born!
Then, haste, sweet rose! sweet woodbine, hymn the morn,
Whose dew-drops shall illume with pearly light
Each grassy blade that thick embattled stands
From sea to sea, while daisies infinite
Uplift in praise their little glowing hands,
O'er every hill that under heav'n expands.

A SHADOW.

A poor affrighted worm,
Where sky and mountain meet,
I stood before the storm,
And heard his strong heart beat.
He drew his black brows down—
My knees each other smote:
The mountains felt his frown,
His dark unutter'd thought
The mountains, at his scowl,
Pray'd mutely to the skies:
He spoke, and shook my soul;
He scorch'd me with his eyes.

Alone, beneath the sky,
I stood the storm before:
No! God, the Storm, and I—
We trode the desert floor;
High on the mountain sod,
The whirlwind's dwellingplace,
The Worm, the Storm, and God
Were present, face to face.
From earth a shadow brake,
E'en where my feet had trode;
The shadow laugh'd and spake
And shook his hand at God.
Then up it rear'd its head,
Beneath the lightning's blaze;
“Omnipotent!” it said,
“Bring back my yesterdays.”
God smiled the gloom away;
Wide earth and heav'n were bright;
In light my shadow lay,
I stood with God in light;
With Him who wings the storm,
Or bids the storm be still,
The shadow of a worm
Held converse on the hill.

ANTICIPATION.

Hail, Realm of gloom! whose clouds are ice! whose air
Is made of thought-sick sighs!
Whose fields are dead men's dust, from which despair
Shrinks as he dies!
Though on thee, and within (sad Infinite!)
Are darkness, death, and doom;
Beyond thee shines the sun of mind and might,
The Power that made thee, God—hail, Holy Light!
I come, I come.

PRESTON MILLS.

The day was fair, the cannon roar'd,
Cold blew the bracing north,
And Preston's Mills, by thousands, pour'd
Their little captives forth.

All in their best they paced the street,
All glad that they were free;
And sung a song with voices sweet—
They sung of Liberty!

But from their lips the rose had fled,
Like “death-in-life” they smiled;
And still, as each pass'd by, I said,
Alas! is that a child?

Flags waved, and men—a ghastly crew—
March'd with them, side by side:
While, hand in hand, and two by two,
They moved—a living tide.

Thousands and thousands—all so white!—
With eyes so glazed and dull!
O God! it was indeed a sight
Too sadly beautiful!

And, oh, the pang their voices gave
Refuses to depart!
This is a wailing for the grave!
I whisper'd to my heart.

It was as if, where roses blush'd,
A sudden blasting gale,
O'er fields of bloom had rudely rush'd,
And turn'd the roses pale.

It was as if, in glen and grove,
The wild birds sadly sung;
And every linnet mourn'd its love,
And every thrush its young.

It was as if, in dungeon gloom,
Where chain'd despair reclined,
A sound came from the living tomb,
And hymn'd the passing wind.

And while they sang, and though they smiled,
My soul groan'd heavily—
O who would be or have a child?
A mother who would be?

FAMINE IN A SLAVE SHIP.

They stood on the deck of the slave-freighted barque,
All hopeless, all dying, while waited the shark;
Sons, Fathers, and Mothers, who shriek'd as they press'd
The infants that pined till they died on the breast—
A crowd of sad mourners, who sigh'd to the gale,
While on all their dark faces the darkness grew pale.

White demons beheld them, with curse and with frown,
And cursed them, from morn till the darkness came down;

And knew not compassion, but laugh'd at their pray'r,
When they called on their God, or wept loud in despair;
Till again rose the morn, and all hush'd was the wail,
And on cheeks stark and cold the grim darkness was pale.

Then the white heartless demons, with curse and with frown,
Gave the dead to the deep, till the darkness came down:
But the angel who blasteth, unheard and unseen,
Bade the tyrants lie low where their victims had been:
And down dropp'd the waves, and stone-still hung the sail,
And black sank the dead, while more pale grew the pale.

Stern angel, how calmly his chosen he slew!
And soon the survivors were fearfully few;
For, wall'd o'er their heads the red firmament stood,
And the sun saw his face in a mirror of blood;
Till they fed on each other, and drank of the sea,
And wildly cursed God in their madness of glee!

What hand sweeps the stars from the cheek of the night?
Who lifts up the sea in the wrath of his might?
Why, down from his glance, shrinks in horror the shark?
Why stumbles o'er mountains the blind foodless barque?
Lo, his lightning speaks out, from the growl of the gale!
And shrieking she sinks—while the darkness turns pale!

THE DYING BOY TO THE SLOE BLOSSOM.

Before thy leaves thou com'st once more,
White blossom of the sloe!
Thy leaves will come as heretofore;
But this poor heart, its troubles o'er,
Will then lie low.

A month at least before thy time
Thou com'st, pale flower, to me;
For well thou know'st the frosty rime
Will blast me ere my vernal prime,
No more to be.

Why here in winter? No storm lowers
O'er Nature's silent shroud!
But blithe larks meet the sunny showers,
High o'er the doom'd untimely flowers
In beauty bow'd.

Sweet violets, in the budding grove,
Peep where the glad waves run;
The wren below, the thrush above,
Of bright to-morrow's joy and love
Sing to the sun.

And where the rose-leaf, ever bold,
Hears bees chant hymns to God,
The breeze-bow'd palm, moss'd o'er with gold,
Smiles on the well in summer cold,
And daisied sod.

But thou, pale blossom, thou art come,
And flowers in winter blow,
To tell me that the worm makes room
For me, her brother, in the tomb,
And thinks me slow.

For as the rainbow of the dawn
Foretells an eve of tears,
A sunbeam on the sadden'd lawn
I smile, and weep to be withdrawn
In early years.

Thy leaves will come! but songful spring
Will see no leaf of mine;
Her bells will ring, her bride's-maids sing,
When my young leaves are withering
Where no suns shine.

O might I breathe morn's dewy breath,
When June's sweet Sabbaths chime!
But, thine before my time, O death!
I go where no flower blossometh,
Before my time.

Even as the blushes of the morn
Vanish, and long ere noon
The dew-drop dieth on the thorn,
So fair I bloom'd; and was I born
To die as soon?

To love my mother and to die—
To perish in my bloom!
Is this my sad brief history?—
A tear dropp'd from a mother's eye
Into the tomb.

He lived and loved—will sorrow say—
By early sorrow tried;
He smiled, he sigh'd, he past away;
His life was but an April day—
He loved and died!

My mother smiles, then turns away,
But turns away to weep:
They whisper round me—what they say
I need not hear, for in the clay
I soon must sleep.

Oh, love is sorrow! sad it is
To be both tried and true;
I ever trembled in my bliss;
Now there are farewells in a kiss—
They sigh adieu.

But woodbines flaunt when blue bells fade,
Where Don reflects the skies;
And many a youth in Shire-cliff's shade
Will ramble where my boyhood play'd,
Though William dies.

Then panting woods the breeze will feel,
And bowers, as heretofore,
Beneath their load of roses reel;
But I through woodbined lanes shall steal
No more, no more.

Well, lay me by my brother's side,
Where late we stood and wept;
For I was stricken when he died—
I felt the arrow as he sigh'd
His last and slept.

THE WONDERS OF THE LANE.

Strong climber of the mountain's side,
Though thou the vale disdain,
Yet walk with me where hawthorns hide
The wonders of the lane.
High o'er the rushy springs of Don
The stormy gloom is roll'd;
The moorland hath not yet put on
His purple, green, and gold.
But here the titling spreads his wing,
Where dewy daisies gleam;
And here the sun-flower of the spring
Burns bright in morning's beam.
To mountain winds the famish'd fox
Complains that Sol is slow
O'er headlong steeps and gushing rocks
His royal robe to throw.
But here the lizard seeks the sun,
Here coils in light the snake;
And here the fire-tuft hath begun
Its beauteous nest to make.

O then, while hums the earliest bee
Where verdure fires the plain,
Walk thou with me, and stoop to see
The glories of the lane!
For, oh, I love these banks of rock,
This roof of sky and tree,
These tufts, where sleeps the gloaming clock,
And wakes the earliest bee!
As spirits from eternal day
Look down on earth secure,
Gaze thou, and wonder, and survey
A world in miniature!
A world not scorn'd by Him who made
Even weakness by his might;
But solemn in his depth of shade,
And splendid in his light.
Light! not alone on clouds afar
O'er storm-loved mountains spread,
Or widely teaching sun and star,
Thy glorious thoughts are read;
Oh, no! thou art a wondrous book
To sky, and sea, and land—
A page on which the angels look,
Which insects understand!
And here, O Light! minutely fair,
Divinely plain and clear,
Like splinters of a crystal hair,
Thy bright small hand is here.

Yon drop-fed lake, six inches wide,
Is Huron, girt with wood;
This driplet feeds Missouri's tide—
And that Niagara's flood.
What tidings from the Andes brings
Yon line of liquid light,
That down from heav'n in madness flings
The blind foam of its might?
Do I not hear his thunder roll—
The roar that ne'er is still?
'Tis mute as death!—but in my soul
It roars, and ever will.
What forests tall of tiniest moss
Clothe every little stone!
What pigmy oaks their foliage toss
O'er pigmy valleys lone!
With shade o'er shade, from ledge to ledge,
Ambitious of the sky,
They feather o'er the steepest edge
Of mountains mushroom high.
O God of marvels! who can tell
What myriad living things
On these grey stones unseen may dwell;
What nations, with their kings?
I feel no shock, I hear no groan,
While fate perchance o'erwhelms
Empires on this subverted stone—
A hundred ruin'd realms!

Lo! in that dot, some mite, like me,
Impell'd by woe or whim,
May crawl some atoms cliffs to see—
A tiny world to him!
Lo! while he pauses, and admires
The works of Nature's might,
Spurn'd by my foot, his world expires,
And all to him is night!
O God of terrors! what are we?—
Poor insects, spark'd with thought!
Thy whisper, Lord, a word from thee
Could smite us into nought!
But should'st thou wreck our father-land
And mix it with the deep,
Safe in the hollow of thine hand
Thy little ones would sleep.

The Hedge Sparrow.

The Dandelion.

The Golden-Crested Wren.

SLEEP.

Sleep! to the homeless, thou art home;
The friendless find in thee a friend;
And well is he, where'er he roam,
Who meets thee at his journey's end.
Thy stillness is the planet's speed;
Thy weakness is unmeasured might;
Sparks from the hoof of death's pale steed—
Worlds flash and perish in thy sight.
The daring will to thee alone—
The will and power are given to thee—
To lift the veil of the unknown,
The curtain of eternity—
To look uncensured, though unbidden,
On marvels from the seraph hidden!
Alone to be—where none have been!
Alone to see—what none have seen!
And to astonish'd reason tell
The secrets of th' Unsearchable!

THE FATAL BIRTH.

Foul parent of fair child, swollen Bread-tax! Thou,
On plunder'd commerce, didst beget Reform:
We see a bright to-morrow on her brow,
And make our hope thy nursling of the storm.
But many a fangèd worm, and biped brute,
On whose dark heart the eye of love ne'er smiled,
Would fain the promise of her morn refute.
Die then, dread power! and have no other child;
For it is written that thy second-born,
If second-born thou have, will thunder-strike
Temple and tower, of strength and splendour shorn
By hands with famine lean; and, Sampson-like,
Shaking the pillars of the gold-roof'd state,
Whelm high, and low, and all, in one remorseless fate.

EPIGRAM.

[“Come, at last?” said Horns to Eldon—]

“Come, at last?” said Horns to Eldon—
“Better late than never:
My Depute! Thou long hast well done;
Keep my seals for ever.”

TRANSPLANTED FLOWERS.

Ye living gems of cold and fragrant fire!
Die ye for ever, when ye die, ye flowers?
Take ye, when in your beauty ye expire,
An everlasting farewell of your bowers?
No more to listen for the wooing air,
And song-brought morn, the cloud-tinged woodlands o'er!
No more to June's soft lip your breasts to bare,
And drink fond evening's dewy breath no more!
Soon fades the sweetest, first the fairest dies,
For frail and fair are sisters; but the heart,
Fill'd with deep love, death's power to kill denies,
And sobs e'en o'er the dead, “We cannot part!”
Have I not seen thee, Wild Rose, in my dreams,
Like a pure spirit—beauteous as the skies,
When the clear blue is brightest, and the streams
Dance down the hills, reflecting the rich dyes
Of morning clouds, and cistus woodbine-twined?—
Didst thou not wake me from a dream of death?
Yea, and thy voice was sweeter than the wind
When it inhales the love-sick violet's breath,
Bending it down with kisses, where the bee
Hums over golden gorse, and sunny broom.
Soul of the Rose! What saidst thou then to me?

“We meet,” thou saidst, “though sever'd by the tomb:
Lo, brother, this is heav'n! And, thus the just shall bloom.”

SPENSERIAN.

[O'er Byron's dust our sorrows should be steel'd]

O'er Byron's dust our sorrows should be steel'd,
Or sternly burn, as, burning slow, he died—
Till one long groan from shuddering Greece reveal'd
That fate had done her worst; and o'er the tide
Loud yell'd the Turk his triumph-howl of pride.
Yet will they flow, these woman's drops; for thou
Didst die for woman, though her hand applied
No gentle pressure to thy fever'd brow:
O Byron, “thou, within, hadst that which passeth show!”

SPENSERIAN.

[Thou, Byron, wast—like him, the iron-crown'd—]

Thou, Byron, wast—like him, the iron-crown'd—
Thought-stricken, scorch'd, and “old in middle age.”
“All-naked feeling's” restless victims bound,
Ill could renown your secret pangs assuage.

Two names of glory in one deathless page!
Both unbeloved, both peerless, both exil'd,
And prison'd both, though one could choose his cage;
Dying, he call'd, in vain, on wife and child;
And in your living hearts, the worm was domiciled.

HYMN,

WRITTEN FOR THE ROTHERHAM POLITICAL UNION, AND SUNG THERE ON THE CELEBRATION OF THE PASSING OF THE THREE REFORM BILLS.

We thank Thee, Lord of earth and heav'n,
For hope, and strength, and triumph given!
We thank Thee that the fight is won,
Although our work is but begun.

We met, we crush'd the evil powers;
A nobler task must now be ours—
Their victims maim'd and poor to feed,
And bind the bruised and broken reed.

O let not Ruin's will be done,
When Freedom's fight is fought and won!
The deed of Brougham, Russell, Grey,
Outlives the night! Lord, give us day!

Grant time, grant patience, to renew,
What England's foes and thine o'erthrew;—
If they destroy'd, let us restore,
And say to Misery, mourn no more.

Lord, let the human storm be still'd!
Lord, let the million mouths be fill'd!
Let labour cease to toil in vain!
Let England be herself again!

Then shall this land her arms stretch forth,
To bless the East, and tame the North;
On tyrants' hearths wake buried souls,
And call to life the murder'd Poles.

Sing, Britons, sing! The sound shall go
Wherever Freedom finds a foe:
This day a trumpet's voice is blown
O'er every despot's heart and throne.

THE EXCURSION.

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.

SONG.

[What! canst thou smile, thou heart of ice?]

What! canst thou smile, thou heart of ice?
Thou! who would'st basely sacrifice,
To pet thy meanest prejudice,
The holiest hopes of man?

Or dost thou sneer, in rage and fear,
Because the hated day is near,
When gods like thee must disappear,
Or have no worshippers!

Well, smile or sneer, and worship still
Old fraud's supremacy of ill;
But bow not unto Dagon's will
The hearts of honest men.

Thy slave-adored Abaddon's name
May none but lips like thine proclaim!
And ignominious be thy fame,
Even as thy virtues are!

SPENSERIAN.

[Even here, on earth, not altogether fade]

Even here, on earth, not altogether fade
The good and vile. Men, in their words and deeds,
Live when the hand and heart in earth are laid;
For thoughts are things, and written thoughts are seeds—
Our very dust buds forth in flowers or weeds.
Then let me write for immortality
One honest song, uncramp'd by forms or creeds,
That men unborn may read my times and me,
Taught by my living words, when I shall cease to be.

MAY.

Shade-loving Hyacinth! thou com'st again;
And thy rich odours seem to swell the flow
Of the lark's song, the redbreast's lonely strain,
And the stream's tune—best sung where wild-flowers blow,
And ever sweetest where the sweetest grow.
Who hath condensed, O broom! in thy bright flowers
The light of mid-day suns? What virgin's cheek
Can match this apple bloom—these glowing showers
Of glistering daisies? How their blushes speak

Of rosy hues that red o'er ocean break,
When cloudy morn is calm, yet fain to weep,
Because the beautful are still the frail!
Hark! 'tis the thrush!—he sings beneath the steep,
Where coolness ever charms the fountain'd vale!
How eloquently well he tells his tale,
That love is yet on earth, and yet will be,
Though virtue struggles, and seems born to fail,
Because fall'n man, who might be great and free,
Toils for the wolf, and bribes iniquity.
Thou are not false, sweet bird! thou dost not keep
The word of promise to our ear alone,
And break it to our hearts! Maids do not weep
Because thou feign'st; for thee no victims groan;
Thy voice is truth, and love is all thy own.
Then, for thy sake, I will not loathe man's face;
Will not believe that virtues are veil'd sins;
That bounty may be mean, and kindness base;
That fortune plays the game which wisdom wins;
That human worth still ends where it begins.
Though man were wholly false, though hope were none
Of late redemption from his sin-made woes,
Yet would I trust in God and goodness. On
From sun to sun the stream of mercy flows;
And still on humble graves the little daisy grows.

THE POLISH FUGITIVES.

WRITTEN FOR THE HULL POLISH RECORD.

The day went down in fire,
The burning ocean o'er—
A son and grey-hair'd sire
Walk'd silent, on the shore.

They walk'd, worn gaunt with cares,
Where land and billow meet—
And of that land was theirs
The dust upon their feet.

Yet they, erewhile, had lands
Which plenteous harvests bore;
But, spoil'd by Russian hands,
Their own was theirs no more.

They came to cross the foam,
And seek, beyond the deep,
A happier, safer home—
A land where sowers reap.

Yet, while the playful gold
Laugh'd into purply green
The crimson clouds that roll'd
The sea and sky between,

The youth his brow upraised
From thoughts of deepest woe,
And on the ocean gazed,
Like one who fronts a foe.

The sire was calm and mild,
And brightly shone his eye;—
How like a stately child,
He look'd on sea and sky!

But on his son's lean cheek,
And in his hands, grasp'd hard,
A heart, that scorn'd to break,
With dreadful feelings warr'd.

For he had left behind
A wife, who dungeon'd lay;
And loath'd the mournful wind,
That sobb'd—Away, away!

Five boys and girls had he:
In fetters pined they all;
And when he saw the sea,
On him he heard them call.

Oh, fiercely he dash'd down
The tear—that came, at length—
Then, almost with a frown.
He pray'd to God for strength.

“Hold up!” the father cried,
“If Poland cannot thrive,
The mother o'er the tide,
May follow with her five.

“But Poland yet shall fling
Dismay on Poland's foes,
As when the Wizard King
Avenged her ancient woes.

“For soon her cause will be
Roused Europe's battle cry;
‘To perish or be free!
To conquer or to die!’”

His hands clasp'd o'er his head,
The son look'd up for aid;
“So be it, Lord!” he said,
And still look'd up, and pray'd,

Till from his eyes, like rain,
When first the black clouds growl,
The agony of pain,
In tears, gush'd from his soul.

The name which the Turks, in their superstitious dread, gave to the great Sobieski.

SPENSERIAN.

[I saw a horrid thing of many names]

I saw a horrid thing of many names,
And many shapes. Some call'd it wealth, some power,
Some grandeur. From its heart it shot black flames,
That scorch'd the souls of millions, hour by hour;
And its proud eyes rain'd everywhere a shower
Of hopeless life, and helpless misery;
For, spoused to fraud, destruction was its dower!
But its cold brightness could not hide from me
The parent base of crime, the nurse of poverty!

SPENSERIAN.

[The marble forms of mortals half divine]

The marble forms of mortals half divine
Yield silently the impress grand of mind
To time and ruin: long the weltering brine,
With heaven's red bolt and reinless blast combined,
Assails the rock in vain: even in the wind,
Slow burns the mighty oak, the forest-king,
Majestic still: so, lofty souls, declined
From their high deeds, a careless mantle fling
O'er cureless wounds, and smile—though life is withering.

SPENSERIAN.

[A tear for thee? Not, Byron, if thy name]

A tear for thee? Not, Byron, if thy name
Shall be a watchword to unchain the slave,
Rolling o'er tyrants' hearts like thundering flame,
And kindling, as with soul, th' embattled wave;
Till conquering Freedom, on their briny grave,
Find Greeks like those who died at Salamis.
Arise, and equal them, ye modern brave!
Let past and future ages yield to this!
And be your names a spell, as Byron's was and is.

SPENSERIAN.

[A tear for Byron? Weakness mourns the weak]

A tear for Byron? Weakness mourns the weak,
And Beauty dies in weeping Love's embrace,
And common frailties common sorrows seek.
But Scourger of the scourgers of thy race!
Thou aw'st me so, that to thy resting-place
I bring stern feelings, not unmix'd with fear.
Standing before the fear'd of all the base,
I, who oft wept thee, cannot weep thee here,
Bard of the broken heart, high soul, and burning tear!

COME AND GONE.

The silent moonbeams on the drifted snow
Shine cold, and pale, and blue,
While through the cottage-door the yule log's glow
Casts on the iced oak's trunk and grey rock's brow
A ruddy hue.

The red ray and the blue, distinct and fair,
Like happy groom and bride,
With azured green, and emerald-orange glare,
Gilding the icicles from branches bare,
Lie side by side.

The door is open, and the fire burns bright,
And Hannah, at the door
Stands—through the clear, cold, moon'd, and starry night,
Gazing intently towards the scarce-seen height,
O'er the white moor.

'Tis Christmas eve! and, from the distant town,
Her pale apprenticed son
Will to his heart-sick mother hasten down,
And snatch his hour of annual transport—flown
Ere well begun.

The Holy Book unread upon his knee,
Old Alfred watcheth calm;
Till Edwin comes, no solemn prayer prays he;
Till Edwin comes, the text he cannot see,
Nor chant the psalm.

And comes he not? Yea, from the wind-swept hill
The cottage-fire he sees;
While of the past remembrance drinks her fill,
Crops childhood's flowers, and bids the unfrozen rill
Shine through green trees.

In thought, he hears the bee hum o'er the moor;
In thought, the sheep-boy's call;
In thought, he meets his mother at the door;
In thought, he hears his father, old and poor,
“Thank God for all.”

His sister he beholds, who died when he,
In London bound, wept o'er
Her last sad letter; vain her prayer to see
Poor Edwin yet again:—he ne'er will be
Her playmate more!

No more with her will hear the bittern boom
At evening's dewy close!
No more with her will wander where the broom
Contends in beauty with the hawthorn bloom
And budding rose!

Oh, love is strength! love, with divine control,
Recalls us when we roam!
In living light it bids the dimmed eye roll,
And gives a dove's wing to the fainting soul,
And bears it home.

Home!—that sweet word hath turn'd his pale lip red,
Relumed his fireless eye;
Again the morning o'er his cheek is spread;
The early rose that seem'd for ever dead,
Returns to die.

Home! home!—Behold the cottage of the moor,
That hears the sheep-boy's call!
And Hannah meets him at the open door
With faint fond scream; and Alfred, old and poor,
“Thanks God for all!”

His lip is on his mother's; to her breast
She clasps him, heart to heart;
His hands between his father's hands are press'd;
They sob with joy, caressing and caress'd:
How soon to part!

Why should they know that thou so soon, O Death!
Wilt pluck him, like a weed?
Why fear consumption in his quick-drawn breath?
Why dread the hectic flower, which blossometh
That worms may feed?

They talk of other days, when, like the birds,
He cull'd the wild flower's bloom,
And roam'd the moorland, with the houseless herds;
They talk of Jane's sad prayer, and her last words,
“Is Edwin come?”

He wept. But still, almost till morning beam'd,
They talk'd of Jane—then slept.
But, though he slept, his eyes, half open, gleam'd;
For still of dying Jane her brother dream'd,
And, dreaming, wept.

At mid-day he arose, in tears, and sought
The churchyard where she lies.
He found her name beneath the snow-wreath wrought;
Then, from her grave, a knot of grass he brought,
With tears and sighs.

The hour of parting came, when feelings deep
In the heart's depth awake.
To his sad mother, pausing oft to weep,
He gave a token, which he bade her keep
For Edwin's sake.

It was a grassy sprig, and auburn tress,
Together twined and tied.
He left them, then, for ever! could they less
Than bless and love that type of tenderness?—
Childless they died!

Long in their hearts a cherish'd thought they wore;
And till their latest breath,
Bless'd him, and kiss'd his last gift o'er and o'er;
But they beheld their Edwin's face no more
In life or death!

For where the upheaved sea of trouble foams,
And sorrow's billows rave,
Men, in the wilderness of myriad homes,
Far from the desert, where the wild flock roams,
Dug Edwin's grave.

A THUNDER STORM IN WINTER.

He spake to eye and ear! and, like a tree
Rooted in heaven, shot down the branchy flame,
While the blue moonlight vanish'd suddenly.
Brighter than light on snow, the brightness came,
Filling the vales with forests of strange fire,
The streams with blood; and flinging o'er the cloud
Banners of crimson, laced with silver wire.
Down to mute earth the giant darkness bow'd,
Giving the hill immeasurable height,
That propp'd the sky; then changed the troubled form,
While from his bosom fell the headlong weight
Of volley'd hail; and, whispering through the storm,
The thunderer spake again: “What fear'st thou? Live, poor worm!”

PROLOGUE TO THE CORN-LAW RHYMES.

For thee, my country, thee, do I perform,
Sternly, the duty of a man born free,
Heedless, though ass, and wolf, and venomous worm,
Shake ears and fangs, with brandish'd bray, at me;
Alone as Crusoe on the hostile sea,
For thee, for us, for ours, do I upraise
The standard of my song! for thine and mine
I toll the knell of England's better days;
And lift my hated voice that mine and thine
May undegrade the human form divine.
Perchance that voice, if heard, is heard too late:
The buried dust of Tyre may wake, and sway
Reconquer'd seas; but what shall renovate
The dead-alive, who dread no judgment-day?
Souls, whom the lust of gold hath turn'd to clay?
And what but scorn and slander will reward
The rabble's poet, and his honest song?
Gambler for blanks! thou play'st an idiot's card;
For, sure to fall, the weak attack the strong:
Ay, but what strength is theirs, whose might is based on wrong?

FROM GOETHE.

How like a stithy is this land!
And we lie on it like good metal
Long hammer'd by a senseless hand!
But will such thumping make a kettle?

CANNING.

He rose—a veteran proud of honest scars;
He stood—a bard, with lightning in his look;
He spoke—Apollo had the voice of Mars:
His frown all hope from phalanx'd faction took,
While flash'd his satire, like a falchion bared,
On all who meanly thought, or basely dared.
He spoke, and died. And therefore must the sky
Return to sunless, moonless, starless night?
And therefore must the hopes of commerce fly
To climes unsatrapp'd? O departing light,
Linger awhile! thy loveliness is might,
And youth, and glory. Earth, from east to west,
Uplift thy multudinous hands in prayer!
Laugh, stormy Russ! to thee the worst is best.

Shout, foes of Man! the scourge and rack prepare!
But, Erin, there is hope in thy despair.
And, Freedom! faint not thou, though Canning dies.
Weak is the State, and tottering to its fall,
That on one mind for strength and life relies;
That State should be an omen unto all
Who stand not self-supported, and appal
E'en tyrants, blindly digging their own graves.
But Freedom's hope, when other hope is none,
Calm, or perturb'd, remains; like winds and waves,
Alike surviving battles lost or won;
More deathless than the dust of Marathon.

FOREST WORSHIP.

Within the sun-lit forest,
Our roof the bright blue sky,
Where fountains flow, and wild flowers blow,
We lift our hearts on high:
Beneath the frown of wicked men
Our country's strength is bowing;
But, thanks to God! they can't prevent
The lone wildflowers from blowing!

High, high above the tree-tops,
The lark is soaring free;
Where streams the light through broken clouds
His speckled breast I see:
Beneath the might of wicked men
The poor man's worth is dying;
But, thank'd be God! in spite of them,
The lark still warbles flying!

The preacher prays, “Lord, bless us!”
“Lord, bless us!” echo cries;
“Amen!” the breezes murmur low;
“Amen!” the rill replies:
The ceaseless toil of woe-worn hearts
The proud with pangs are paying;
But here, O God of earth and heaven!
The humble heart is praying?

How softly, in the pauses
Of song, re-echoed wide,
The cushat's coo, the linnet's lay,
O'er rill and river glide!
With evil deeds of evil men
Th' affrighted land is ringing;
But still, O Lord! the pious heart
And soul-toned voice are singing!

Hush! hush! the preacher preacheth:
“Woe to the oppressor, woe!”
But sudden gloom o'ercasts the sun
And sadden'd flowers below:
So frowns the Lord!—but, tyrants, ye
Deride his indignation,
And see not in his gather'd brow
Your days of tribulation!

Speak low, thou heaven-paid teacher!
The tempest bursts above:
God whispers in the thunder: hear
The terrors of his love!
On useful hands, and honest hearts,
The base their wrath are wreaking;
But, thank'd be God! they can't prevent
The storm of heav'n from speaking.

A SONG IN EXILE.

Yes, with groans my lyre is strung;
Tears, from Poland's ruin wrung,
Flow in music from my tongue,
Poland's tears and Liberty's.

England saw our setting sun!
Britons! was it wisely done?
You gave Warsaw to the Hun!
Why not London, Englishman?

Lo! while Russia's iron tread,
Where we fell or whence we fled,
Shakes the dust of Poland's dead!
Europe trembles guiltily!

Tyrant! twice we overthrew
Hordes of thine, to tyrants true!
Twice we smote and twice we slew,
Recreant France! thy conquerors.

Yet, with us was Europe sold;
Gaul's delay, and England's gold,
Frighted France and Britain cold,
Bribed the Goth to purchase her.

Poland fell—and they may fall,
Crush'd on Freedom's funeral pall;
But the Lord is Lord of all;
Thou, O Father, tremblest not!

Hopeless, homeless, do we roam?
Be Revenge our hope and home!
Thoughts that quench, in gory foam,
Moscow's fiery funeral!

By Polonia's gory sod!
Dig thou wide, Polonia's God,
Dig thou deep, where freemen trod,
Russia's grave and Tyranny's.

ON AN ORIGINAL SKETCH,

DRAWN WITH A PENCIL ON A WALL, BY MY SON FRANCIS.

I saw a head, a young but lifeless face—
On its dark hair, and two white wings, reposed,
As on a pillow. Tears had left their trace
Down each sad cheek; beneath dim eyes half-closed,
The calm lips smiled; and like a sky arose,
Amid thick curls, the forehead domed for thought.
It lay, as if the soul—though worn with woes,
And bathed in parting tears—serenely sought
For strength in sleep, before it wing'd its flight
From darkness, doubt, and dust, to dwell with God, in light.

SONG.

[They sold the chairs, they took the bed, and went]

They sold the chairs, they took the bed, and went;
A fiend's look after them the husband sent;
His thin wife held him faintly, but in vain;
She saw the alehouse in his scowl of pain.

Upon her pregnant womb her hand she laid,
Then stabb'd her living child! and shriek'd, dismay'd—
“Oh, why had I a mother!” wildly said
That saddest mother, gazing on the dead.

Slowly she turn'd, and sought the silent room—
Her last-born child's lone dwellingplace and tomb!
Because they could not purchase earth and prayer,
The dear dead boy had long lain coffin'd there!

But that boy hath a sister—where is she?
Dying, where none a cherub fall'n may see:—
“Mother! O come!” she sobs, with stifled groan,
In that blest isle, where pity turns to stone.

Before the judge, the childless stood amazed,
With none to say, “My Lord! the wretch is crazed.”
Crowds saw her perish, but all eyes were dry;
Drunk, in the crowd, her husband saw her die!

Around the murderer's wrists they lock the chain:
What, tyrant? whom hath Rapine's victim slain?
The widow, hunger-stung and sorrow-bent,
Who ask'd, with tears, her lodger's weekly rent!

O Wholesale Dealers in waste, want, and war!
Would that your deeds were written!—and they are!
Written and graved, on minds and hearts oppress'd;
Stamp'd deep, and blood-burnt-in, o'er realms unbless'd!

TO THE BRAMBLE FLOWER.

Thy fruit full-well the schoolboy knows,
Wild bramble of the brake!
So, put thou forth thy small white rose;
I love it for his sake.
Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow
O'er all the fragrant bowers,
Thou needst not be ashamed to show
Thy satin-threaded flowers;
For dull the eye, the heart is dull,
That cannot feel how fair,
Amid all beauty beautiful,
Thy tender blossoms are!

How delicate thy gauzy frill!
How rich thy branchy stem!
How soft thy voice, when woods are still,
And thou sing'st hymns to them;
While silent showers are falling slow
And, 'mid the general hush,
A sweet air lifts the little bough,
Lone whispering through the bush!
The primrose to the grave is gone;
The hawthorn flower is dead;
The violet by the moss'd grey stone
Hath laid her weary head;
But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring,
In all their beauteous power,
The fresh green days of life's fair spring,
And boyhood's blossomy hour.
Scorn'd bramble of the brake! once more
Thou bid'st me be a boy,
To gad with thee the woodlands o'er,
In freedom and in joy.

SPENSERIAN.

[All unmatch'd Shakspeare, and the blind old Man]

All unmatch'd Shakspeare, and the blind old Man
Of London, hymn in every land and clime
Our country's praise, while many an artisan
Spins for her glory school-taught lays sublime.
Them in her bosom, be they blank or rhyme,
Oblivious spirits gently will inter.
But three unborrow'd strains will to all time
Give honour, glory, highest laud to her—
Thalaba! Peter Bell! the Ancient Mariner!

THOMAS.

Thou art not dead, my son! my son!
But God hath hence removed thee:
Thou canst not die, my buried boy,
While lives the sire who loved thee.
How canst thou die, while weeps for thee
The broken heart that bore thee;
And e'en the thought that thou are not
Can to her soul restore thee?
Will grief forget thy willingness
To run before thy duty?
The love of all the good and true,
That fill'd thine eyes with beauty?

Thy pitying grace, thy dear request,
When others had offended,
That made thee look as angels look,
When great good deeds are ended?
The strength with which thy soul sustain'd
Thy woes and daily wasting?
Thy prayer, to stay with us, when sure
That thou from us wast hasting?
And that last smile, which seem'd to say—
“Why cannot ye restore me?”
Thy look'd farewell is in my heart,
And brings thee still before me.
What though the change, the fearful change,
From thought, which left thee never,
To unremembering ice and clay,
Proclaim thee gone for ever?
Thy half-closed lids, thy upturn'd eyes,
Thy still and lifeless tresses;
Thy marble lip, which moves no more,
Yet more than grief expresses;
The silence of thy coffin'd snow,
By awed remembrance cherish'd;
These dwell with me, like gather'd flowers
That in their April perish'd.
Thou art not gone, thou canst not go
My bud, my blasted blossom!
The pale rose of thy faded face
Still withers in my bosom.

O Mystery of Mysteries,
That took'st my poor boy from me!
What art thou, Death? all-dreaded Death!
If weakness can o'ercome thee?
We hear thee not! we see thee not,
E'en when thy arrows wound us;
But, viewless, printless, echoless,
Thy steps are ever round us.
Though more than life a mystery
Art thou, the undeceiver,
Amid thy trembling worshippers
Thou seest no true believer.
No!—but for life, and more than life,
No fearful search could find thee:
Tremendous shadow! who is He
That ever stands behind thee?
The Power who bids the worm deny
The beam that o'er her blazes,
And veils from us the holier light
On which the seraph gazes,
Where burns the throne of Him, whose name
The sunbeams here write faintly;
And where my child a stranger stands
Amid the blest and saintly,
And sobs aloud—while in his eyes
The tears, o'erflowing, gather—
“They come not yet!—until they come,
Heav'n is not Heav'n, my Father!

Why come they not? why comes not she
From whom thy will removes me?
O does she love me—love me still?
I know my mother loves me!
Then send her soon! and with her send
The brethren of my bosom!
My sisters too! Lord, let them all
Bloom round the parted blossom!
The only pang I could not bear
Was leaving them behind me:
I cannot bear it. Even in heaven
The tears of parting blind me!”

BIGOTRY.

When calm minds strongly shoot into the night
Their shafts of lightning, no roused hamlet screams;
But darkness dies, pierced through and through with light,
That casts in silence round its useful beams.
Not so, when Zealots twang into the dark,
Flight after flight, their mischief-whizzing spears;
Though, thunder-wing'd, they hit or miss the mark,
They never fail to fire their own long ears,
Which blaze with splendour not to be endured,
Except by them whose barns and corn-ricks are insured.

DON AND ROTHER.

Again we meet, where often we have met,
Dear Rother! native Don!
We meet again, to talk, with vain regret,
Of deedless aims! and years remember'd yet—
The past and gone!

We meet again—perchance to meet no more!
O Rivers of the heart!
I hear a voice, unvoyaged billows o'er,
Which bids me hasten to their pathless shore,
And cries, “Depart!”

“Depart!” it cries. “Why linger on the stage
Where virtues are veil'd crimes?
Have I not read thee, even from youth to age?
Thou blotted book, with only one bright page!
Thy honest rhymes!

“Depart, pale Drone! What fruit-producing flower
Hast thou rear'd on the plain?
What useful moments count'st thou in thine hour?
What victim hast thou snatch'd from cruel power?
What tyrant slain?”

I will obey the power whom all obey.
Yes, Rivers of the heart!
O'er that blind deep, where morning casts no ray
To cheer the oarless wanderer on his way,
I will depart.

But first, O Rivers of my childhood! first
My soul shall talk with you;
For on your banks my infant thoughts were nursed;
Here from the bud the spirit's petals burst,
When life was new.

Before my fingers learn'd to play with flowers,
My feet through flowers to stray;
Ere my tongue lisp'd, amid your dewy bowers,
Its first glad hymn to Mercy's sunny showers,
And air, and day;

When, in my mother's arms, an infant frail,
Along your windings borne,
My blue eye caught your glimmer in the vale,
Where halcyons darted o'er your willows pale,
On wings like morn.

Ye saw my feelings round that mother grow,
Like green leaves round the root!
Then thought, with danger came, and flower'd like woe!
But deeds, the fervent deeds that blush and glow,
Are Virtue's fruit.

From infancy to youth; from schoolboy days,
When life with stones and flowers
Sports, like the stream that with the sunbeam plays
Till age counts fearfully his number'd days—
We waste our powers.

What doth the man but what the child hath done?
We live, we talk, we move!
The best of all who prate beneath the sun;
The praised of all who smile, and talk, and run;
But live and love.

And if the best are like the useless gem
That shines in idle state;
Heavy, on those who crush the useful stem—
Heavy will fall the hand of God on them
Who live and hate!

Who bruise the weak, but bind no broken reed;
Who know not ruth nor shame;
Who, flowerless, ban the flower, to plant the weed;
And curse the toiling worms on whom they feed,
In God's great name!

Can I not crush them? No. Then, warning voice,
Teach me to welcome thee!
I cannot crush them. Let me then rejoice
Because thou call'st; and make my fate my choice—
Bound and yet free.

Is it not love, to loathe the loveless? Yea,
'Tis love like God's to man!
The love of angels for their God!—Away!
Such love alone repayeth those who pay—
No other can.

They love not God, who do not hate man's foes,
With hatred—not like mine—
But deep as Hell and blacker. To loathe those
Who blast the hope of freedom as it blows,
Is love divine.

Ah! many a blossom of the holy tree
Hath blossom'd but to fade!
Poland! the tears of nations flow for thee!
Thy bud of late redemption, Italy,
In dust is laid!

But hath no hope cheer'd man's despair since first
I trod thy margin, Don?
Yea, mighty links of evil's chain are burst;
And they who curse, and will not bless, accursed
Fall, one by one.

Though Poland bleeds where Kosciusko died,
Hark! truth-taught millions say,
To thrones, crime-sceptred, “Lo, you are defied!”
And, at my birth, Redemption's angel cried,
“America!”

Then, Rivers, tell my mother earth, I come
To slumber on her breast!
For, lo, my drooping thoughts refuse to bloom!
My spirit shakes its fetters. I crave room
For rest, for rest.

FUNERAL HYMN.

Father! our brother's course is run,
And we bring home thy weary son;
No more he toils, no more he weeps;
And shall we mourn because he sleeps?

He thank'd Thee, God of earth and sky,
For all that creep, and all that fly;
For weeds, that silent anthems raise,
And thoughts, that make their silence praise.

For every thorn and every flower!
For conquering Right and baffled Power;
For all the meek and all the proud,
He thank'd the Lord of sun and cloud.

For soul to feel and sight to see,
In all thy works, but types of Thee;
For all thy works, and for thy word,
In life and death, he thank'd Thee, Lord.

He thank'd Thee too for struggles long;
For storms, that make the feeble strong;
For every pang thy goodness gave;
For hope deferr'd—and for the grave.

Oh, welcome in the morn, the road
That climbs to virtue's high abode!
But when descends the evening dew,
The inn of rest is welcome too.

Thou sayst to man, “Arise, and run
Thy glorious course, like yonder sun!”
But when thy children need repose,
Their Father's hand the curtain draws.

What though with eyes that yet can weep,
The sinner trembles into sleep?
Thou know'st he yet shall wake and rise
To gaze on Mercy's brightest skies.

The fearful child, though still caress'd,
Will tremble on his mother's breast,
But he, she knows, is safe from ill,
Though, watch'd by love, he trembles still.

Lord! when our brother wakes, may they,
Who watch beneath thy footstool, say,
“Another wanderer is forgiven!
Another child is born in heav'n!”

FLOWERS FOR THE HEART.

Flowers! winter flowers!—the child is dead,
The mother cannot speak:
O softly couch his little head,
Or Mary's heart will break!
Amid those curls of flaxen hair
This pale pink ribbon twine,
And on the little bosom there
Place this wan lock of mine.
How like a form in cold white stone,
The coffin'd infant lies!
Look, Mother, on thy little one!
And tears will fill thine eyes.
She cannot weep—more faint she grows,
More deadly pale and still:
Flowers! oh, a flower! a winter rose,
That tiny hand to fill.
Go, search the fields! the lichen wet
Bends o'er th' unfailing well;
Beneath the furrow lingers yet
The scarlet pimpernel.
Peeps not a snowdrop in the bower,
Where never froze the spring?
A daisy? Ah! bring childhood's flower!
The half-blown daisy bring!

Yes, lay the daisy's little head
Beside the little cheek;
O haste! the last of five is dead!
The childless cannot speak!

TO FANNY.

Britoness! angels love in thee
Angelic truth and piety;
But angels do not bow the knee
To God-defying homicides.

For others' woes thy bosom bleeds;
Deep is thy hate of hateful deeds;
But why of words, and forms, and creeds,
O why art thou the homager?

Does true religion war on mind?
Is pure religion deaf and blind?
They best serve God, who serve mankind;
Christ bade us feed his little ones.

O then contemn the base and cold!
Say to thy sons, “Be just and bold,
Unawed by power, unbribed by gold!”
Britoness! this is piety.

Thou bid'st me scorn this world of care;
“For better worlds,” thou say'st, “prepare!”
Not I—if angel forms are there
Apologists of tyranny.

Where Milton's eyes, no longer dim,
See Seraphs walk with slander'd Pym,
I would not hear the cherubim
Sing Tory odes to Castlereagh.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

Stop, Mortal! Here thy brother lies,
The Poet of the Poor.
His books were rivers, woods, and skies,
The meadow, and the moor;
His teachers were the torn hearts' wail,
The tyrant, and the slave,
The street, the factory, the jail,
The palace—and the grave!
The meanest thing, earth's feeblest worm,
He fear'd to scorn or hate;
And honour'd in a peasant's form
The equal of the great.

But if he loved the rich who make
The poor man's little more,
Ill could he praise the rich who take
From plunder'd labour's store.
A hand to do, a head to plan,
A heart to feel and dare—
Tell man's worst foes, here lies the man
Who drew them as they are.

EPIGRAM.

[When long, the drama, in a sordid age]

When long, the drama, in a sordid age,
Had droop'd an exile; to the desert stage
Impassion'd nature, weeping as she smiled,
Led, by his trembling hand, her darling child:
Even from the worms upstarted buried spleen,
While Shakspeare's dust, in transport murmur'd— “Kean!”

THE DEATH-HUNTED.

Methought I wander'd long and far, and slept
On purple heath flowers, where a dark stream crept,
For ever young, along its bed of stone.
But soon before my troubled spirit pass'd,
A dream of unclimb'd hills, and forest vast,
And sea-like lakes, and shadowy rivers lone.

And there a man, whose youth seem'd palsied eld,
Moved faintly, though by famish'd death impell'd:
Lean was his cheek; yet beam'd his gentle eye,
With a calm sadness, on the mountains hoar,
And the magnificent flora, on the shore
Of waters, piled against his native sky.

And, “O,” he said, “false hope, that truth-like seem'd!
I thought that toil might earn hard bread! I dream'd.
Who hath had sorrows and despair like mine?
Millions! to wander, or to perish, free!
Green Erin's dower! can lightnings blast like thee?
Cold Rapine! hath the wolf a tooth like thine?

“Farewell, my Country! and oh, thank'd be thou,
Realm of the roaring surge, that part'st us now!
And hail, ye pathless swamps, ye unsail'd floods!—
Thou owest nought, thou glittering snake, to me!
Hiss! if thou wilt! I ask not bread of thee!”
And then he plunged into the night of woods.

The corpse-fed spectre, that had chased him o'er
Woe-freighted waves, stopp'd ere he reach'd the shore;
For a voice whisper'd from dim caves beneath,
“Thou may'st spare one, if millions are behind!
Turn then and cleave the blissful western wind
Back to the grave of Hope, where Love is Death!”

LINES

WRITTEN AFTER SEEING, AT MR. JOHN HEPPENSTALL'S OF UPPERTHORPE, NEAR SHEFFIELD, THE PLATES OF AUDUBON'S BIRDS OF AMERICA.

“Painting is silent music.” So said one
Whose prose is sweetest painting. Audubon!
Thou Raphael of great Nature's woods and seas!
Thy living forms and hues, thy plants, thy trees,
Bring deathless music from the houseless waste—
The immortality of truth and taste.
Thou giv'st bright accents to the voiceless sod;
And all thy pictures are mute hymns to God.
Why hast thou power to bear th' untravell'd soul
Through farthest wilds, o'er ocean's stormy roll;
And, to the prisoner of disease, bring home
The homeless birds of ocean's roaring foam;
But that thy skill might bid the desert sing
The sun-bright plumage of th' Almighty's wing?
With his own hues thy splendid lyre is strung;
For genius speaks the universal tongue.
“Come,” cries the bigot, black with pride and wine—
“Come and hear me—the Word of God is mine!”
“But I,” saith He, who paves with suns his car,
And makes the storms his coursers from afar,

And, with a glance of his all-dazzling eye,
Smites into crashing fire the boundless sky—
“I speak in this swift sea-bird's speaking eyes,
These passion-shiver'd plumes, these lucid dyes:
This beauty is my language! in this breeze
I whisper love to forests and the seas;
I speak in this lone flower—this dew-drop cold—
That hornet's sting—yon serpent's neck of gold:
These are my accents. Hear them! and behold
How well my prophet-spoken truth agrees
With the dread truth and mystery of these
Sad, beauteous, grand, love-warbled mysteries!”
Yes, Audubon! and men shall read in thee
His language, written for eternity;
And if, immortal in its thoughts, the soul
Shall live in heaven, and spurn the tomb's control,
Angels shall retranscribe, with pens of fire,
Thy forms of Nature's terror, love, and ire,
Thy copied words of God—when death-struck suns expire.

Rousseau.

ELEGY ON WILLIAM COBBETT.

O bear him where the rain can fall,
And where the winds can blow!
And let the sun weep o'er his pall
As to the grave ye go!

And in some little lone churchyard,
Beside the growing corn,
Lay gentle Nature's stern prose bard,
Her mightest peasant-born!

Yes! let the wild-flower wed his grave,
That bees may murmur near,
When o'er his last home bend the brave,
And say—“A man lies here.”

For Britons honour Cobbett's name,
Though rashly oft he spoke;
And none can scorn, and few will blame,
The low-laid heart of oak.

See, o'er his prostrate branches, see,
E'en factious hate consents
To reverence, in the fallen tree,
His British lineaments!

Though gnarl'd the storm-toss'd boughs that braved
The thunder's gather'd scowl,
Not always through his darkness raved
The storm-winds of the soul.

Oh, no! in hours of golden calm,
Morn met his forehead bold;
And breezy evening sung her psalm
Beneath his dew-dropp'd gold.

The wren its crest of fibred fire
With his rich bronze compared,
While many a youngling's songful sire
His acorn'd twiglets shared.

The lark, above, sweet tribute paid,
Where clouds with light were riven;
And true-love sought his blue-bell'd shade,
“To bless the hour of heav'n.”

E'en when his stormy voice was loud,
And guilt quaked at the sound,
Beneath the frown that shook the proud
The poor a shelter found.

Dead Oak, thou liv'st! Thy smitten hands,
The thunder of thy brow,
Speak, with strange tongues, in many lands;
And tyrants hear thee NOW!

Beneath the shadow of thy name,
Inspired by thy renown,
Shall future patriots rise to fame,
And many a sun go down.

LINES

ON SEEING UNEXPECTEDLY A NEW CHURCH, WHILE WALKING, ON THE SABBATH, IN OLD-PARK WOOD, NEAR SHEFFIELD.

From Shirecliffe, o'er a silent sea of trees,
When evening waned o'er Wadsley's cottages,
I look'd on Loxley, Rivilin, and Don,
While at my side stood truth-loved Pemberton;
And wonder'd, far beneath me, to behold
A golden spire, that glow'd o'er fields of gold.
Out of the earth it rose, with sudden power,
A bright flame, growing heavenward, like a flower,
Where erst nor temple stood, nor holy psalm
Rose to the mountains in the day of calm.
There, at the altar, plighted hearts may sigh;
There, side by side, how soon their dust may lie!
Then carven stones the old, old tale will tell,
That saddens joy with its brief chronicle,
Till Time, with pinions stolen from the dove,
Gently erase the epitaph of love;
While rivers sing, on their unwearied way,
The song that but with earth can pass away,
That brings the tempest's accents from afar,
And breathes of woodbines where no woodbines are!

Yet deem not that Affection can expire,
Though earth and skies shall melt in fervent fire;
For truth hath written, on the stars above—
“Affection cannot die, if God is Love!”
Whene'er I pass a grave with moss o'ergrown,
Love seems to rest upon the silent stone,
Above the wreck of sublunary things,
Like a tired angel sleeping on his wings.

The unequalled lecturer on the drama.

RIBBLEDIN; OR THE CHRISTENING.

No name hast thou! lone streamlet
That lovest Rivilin.
Here, if a bard may christen thee,
I'll call thee “Ribbledin;”
Here, where first murmuring from thine urn,
Thy voice deep joy expresses;
And down the rock, like music, flows
The wildness of thy tresses.

Here, while beneath the umbrage
Of Nature's forest bower,
Bridged o'er by many a fallen birch,
And watch'd by many a flower,

To meet thy cloud-descended love,
All trembling, thou retirest—
Here will I murmur to thy waves
The sad joy thou inspirest.

Dim world of weeping mosses!
A hundred years ago,
Yon hoary-headed holly tree
Beheld thy streamlet flow:
See how he bends him down to hear
The tune that ceases never!
Old as the rocks, wild stream, he seems,
While thou art young for ever.

Wildest and lonest streamlet!
Grey oaks, all lichen'd o'er!
Rush-bristled isles! ye ivied trunks
That marry shore to shore!
And thou, gnarl'd dwarf of centuries,
Whose snaked roots twist above me!
O for the tongue or pen of Burns,
To tell you how I love ye!

Would that I were a river,
To wander all alone
Through some sweet Eden of the wild,
In music of my own;

And bathed in bliss, and fed with dew,
Distill'd o'er mountains hoary,
Return unto my home in heav'n
On wings of joy and glory!

Or that I were the lichen,
That, in this roofless cave,
(The dim geranium's lone boudoir,)
Dwells near the shadow'd wave,
And hears the breeze-bow'd tree-tops sigh,
While tears below are flowing,
For all the sad and lovely things
That to the grave are going!

O that I were a primrose,
To bask in sunny air!
Far, far from all the plagues that make
Town-dwelling men despair!
Then would I watch the building-birds,
Where light and shade are moving,
And lovers' whisper, and love's kiss,
Rewards the loved and loving!

Or that I were a skylark,
To soar and sing above,
Filling all hearts with joyful sounds,
And my own soul with love!

Then o'er the mourner and the dead,
And o'er the good man dying,
My song should come like buds and flowers,
When music warbles flying.

O that a wing of splendour,
Like yon wild cloud, were mine!
Yon bounteous cloud, that gets to give,
And borrows to resign!
On that bright wing, to climes of spring
I'd bear all wintry bosoms,
And bid hope smile on weeping thoughts,
Like April on her blossoms;

Or like the rainbow, laughing
O'er Rivilin and Don,
When misty morning calleth up
Her mountains, one by one,
While glistening down the golden broom,
The gem-like dew-drop raineth,
And round the little rocky isles
The little wave complaineth.

O that the truth of beauty
Were married to my rhyme!
That it might wear a mountain charm
Until the death of Time!

Then, Ribbledin! would all the best
Of Sorrow's sons and daughters
See Truth reflected in my song,
Like beauty on thy waters.

No longer, nameless streamlet,
That marriest Rivilin!
Henceforth, lone Nature's devotees
Would call thee “Ribbledin,”
Whenever, listening where thy voice
Its first wild joy expresses,
And down the rocks all wildly flows
The wildness of thy tresses.

THE MALTBY YEWS.

Famed Maltby Yews, with trunks like stone!
Are you or these grey rocks the older?
Like “death-in-life,” ye strangely grow,
And, dead alive, they sternly moulder.
Memorials grand of death and life,
That seem from time new life to borrow!
Full many a race have ye outlived
Of men whose lives were crime and sorrow.

Age after age, while Time grew old,
Your writhen boughs, here, slowly lengthen'd;
Storm-stricken trees! your stormy strength
Five hundred years have darkly strengthen'd.
Yet safe beneath your mighty roots
The busy bee hath made its dwelling;
And, at your feet, the little mouse,
With lifted hands, its joy is telling.

And, high above the full-voiced lark,
The sun that loves to see you, beameth
On lonely rock or mossy trunk,
That with the rock coeval seemeth;
While, all around, the desert flowers,
Where breezes drink their freshness, gather,
As children come to kneel and bend
In prayer around their father's father.

O could I write upon your gloom
A solemn verse that would not perish,
My written thoughts should warn and bless,
And nations saved the precept cherish;
For I would bid the dark and strong
Be greatly good, and daily stronger,
That power to wrong, and will to wrong,
Like fiends divorced, might pair no longer.

BURNS.

That heaven's beloved die early,
Prophetic Pity mourns;
But old as Truth, although in youth,
Died giant-hearted Burns.

O that I were the daisy
That sank beneath his plough,
Or, “neighbour meet,” that “skylark sweet!”
Say, are they nothing now?

That mouse, “our fellow mortal,”
Lives deep in Nature's heart;
Like earth and sky, it cannot die
Till earth and sky depart.

Thy Burns, child-honour'd Scotland!
Is many minds in one;
With thought on thought, the name is fraught
Of glory's peasant son.

Thy Chaucer is thy Milton,
And might have been thy Tell;
As Hampden fought, thy Sidney wrote
And would have fought as well.

Be proud, man-childed Scotland!
Of earth's unpolish'd gem;
And “Bonny Doon,” and “heaven aboon,”
For Burns hath hallow'd them.

Be proud, though sin dishonour'd,
And grief baptized thy child;
As rivers run, in shade and sun,
He ran his courses wild.

Grieve not, though savage forests
Look'd grimly on the wave,
Where dim-eyed flowers and shaded bowers
Seem'd living in the grave.

Grieve not, though, by the torrent,
Its headlong course was riven,
When o'er it came, in clouds and flame,
Niagara from heaven!

For sometimes gently flowing,
And sometimes chafed to foam,
O'er slack and deep, by wood and steep,
He sought his heavenly home.

THE TRICOLOR CROSS.

PARODIED FROM BERANGER'S “CROSS OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR.”

Thou took'st thy deep blue from the eyes of the soul,
And thy white from the foam of the far rolling sea:
But, Cross of the Billows! famed far as they roll,
Why stain thy bright red with the blood of the free?
Columbia beheld thee flaunt over her slain,
When she call'd up the ghosts of Pym, Hampton, and Vane;
And steep'd were thy folds in the blood of her brave,
When France broke her chain, to dig tyrants a grave.

Famed Red Cross of England, famed ever to be!
Bright Cross of the Tricolor! when wilt thou wave,
A meteor in darkness, from sea unto sea—
The symbol of justice, the hope of the slave?
Where, where wast thou waving when Poland arose,
Crying “God for Sarmatia!” to Liberty's foes?
Oh, not o'er the ranks of the sworn-to-be free,
Stain'd Cross of the Ocean, stain'd ever to be!

Stain'd ever?—No, Ocean! thy Tricolor Cross
Shall yet shame the Tricolor dreadfully fair;
Through the ranks of th' oppressor its brightness shall toss
Defiance and havoc, defeat and despair;
O'er the treason of priests, the rebellion of kings,
Our halcyon shall rise, with thy blue on his wings,
And sport with the billows wherever they roll,
Bright, bright as heav'n's depth in the eyes of the soul.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

A voice of grief and anger—
Of pity mix'd with scorn—
Moans o'er the waters of the west,
Through fire and darkness borne;
And fiercer voices join it—
A wild triumphant yell!
For England's foes, on ocean slain,
Have heard it where they fell.

What is that voice which cometh
Athwart the spectred sea?
The voice of men who left their homes
To make their children free;

Of men whose hearts were torches
For Freedom's quenchless fire;
Of men, whose mothers brave brought forth
The sires of Franklin's sire.

They speak!—the Pilgrim Fathers
Speak to ye from their graves!
For earth hath mutter'd to their bones
That we are soulless slaves!
The Bradfords, Carvers, Winslows,
Have heard the worm complain,
That less than men oppress the men
Whose sires were Pym and Vane!

What saith the voice which boometh
Athwart th' upbraiding waves?
“Though slaves are ye, our sons are free,
Then why will you be slaves?
The children of your fathers
Were Hampden, Pym, and Vane!”
Land of the sires of Washington,
Bring forth such men again!

A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE.

An old man, to the field of graves
Borne, in his parish-shroud, methought,
Found, in the land of landless slaves,
The bed of rest, which long he sought.

But, after many years had flown,
That old man rose out of his grave,
And wonder'd at his native town,
And found no honest man a slave.

Where once that town of trouble stood,
And he the tyrant's frown had felt,
Men in sweet homes, by stream and wood,
Amid their own green acres dwelt.

Nor hovel now, nor temple was,
Where hovels once and temples stood;
All, all had perish'd! for, alas!
Redemption had been steep'd in blood!

Remote, an engined city groan'd
Where bad men toil'd in penal gloom;
The Agnews there the Pelhams moan'd,
The Melvilles plied the penal loom.

Tyrants, not victims, justly bound
To labour's chain, alone were slaves:
And no good man was landless found
In this sad land, where men have graves.

But things which penal toil had wrought,
Converting crime itself to good,
The blessings of all climates brought
To those sweet homes, by stream and wood.

Instinct with life, almost they seem'd,
And came and went, when call'd or sent
By tranquil thought, that star-like beam'd
On each untiring instrument.

Not only by his toiling hands,
But chiefly by his god-like mind,
Man, sowing bliss, in distant lands,
Made earth a garden for mankind.

THE BALLOT.

The sky had no voice, and the ocean was still—
A power and a terror chain'd valley and hill;
For the spirit of Burns, upon thunder-clouds borne,
Look'd down on his country in pity and scorn;
Because the descendants of Wallace were slow,
The bonds they had loosen'd to break at a blow.

“What! give back their souls to these freemen enthrall'd?
Then give them the ballot!” o'er Scotland he call'd;
“Concede it, proud traitors! obtain it, thou thrall—
Thou robb'd of the land which the Lord made for all!
Obtain it, ye millions, who labour for drones!
Concede it, ye despots, who feast on their groans!”

The Lords of Misrule and their Master turn'd pale;
The tyrant-eyed viper seem'd weak as the snail;
The bones of the murder'd for freedom came forth
From their far-sever'd graves, with a growl like the north;
Of millions awaking the murmur was deep;
And the face of the bard was like lightning asleep.

So hovers the eagle o'er summits of light,
Which, touch'd by his shadow, start up in affright;
While, girt by the peaks where the storm sinks to rest,
Loch Oich sees Ben Nevis sink down in the west,
When o'er the dark glare of the sky-painted lake,
Frown Coryuragen and Coriaraick.

The martyrs Muir, Palmer, Skirving, Gerald, and Margarot, all died in exile, except the latter, who perished for want of bread in London!!!

Two mountains of Scotland near the source of the Ness.

ROCH ABBEY GATEWAY.

What dost thou here, lorn Ireland's dying daughter?
These holy walls, that erst, with open door
Welcomed the pilgrim—offering bread and water,
Prayer, rest, and counsel, to the way-worn poor—
Now mute and barren as the manless moor,
Would not, to Christ himself, afford a crumb!
Perish, unheard, thou spurn'd of lord and boor!
Poor Erin's waif! be Supplication dumb
Where Charity is deaf. At hallow'd gates
Hop'st thou for succour? Outcast! over them
Mourns ivied Ruin; or, within them, waits
Obstruction loop'd and ring'd with gold and gem;
And Mammon, plotting woe to harpied states,
Scowls from beneath his cloven diadem.
Fair was she, and her famish'd child was like her;
Nought lovelier mourns beneath the laughing skies.
As I approach'd, I saw the baby strike her;
It raged for food, while tears gushed from her eyes!
Why did she marry, in the land of sighs,

Where crimes, call'd laws, made by the lawless, named
Her child “Benoni?” Let the basely wise
Say, rather, why, self-duped and unashamed,
They curse God's blessings; and, with blasphemies,
Hallow the arrow at our vitals aim'd,
Lauding the madness that makes precious things,
Yea, things most precious, worthless! Heav'n is blamed,
And hope and action droop their palsied wings,
Because our lords are bread-tax-eating kings.

“I saw a baby beat its dying mother;
I had starved the one, and was starving the other!”

Coleridge.

LEAVES AND MEN.

Drop, drop into the grave, Old Leaf,
Drop, drop into the grave;
Thy acorn's grown, thy acorn's sown—
Drop, drop into the grave.
December's tempests rave, Old Leaf,
Above thy forest-grave, Old Leaf;
Drop, drop into the grave!

The birds, in spring, will sweetly sing
That death alone is sad;
The grass will grow, the primrose show
That death alone is sad.

Lament above thy grave, Old Leaf!
For what has life to do with grief?
'Tis death alone that's sad.

What then? We two have both lived through
The sunshine and the rain;
And bless'd be He, to me and thee,
Who sent his sun and rain!
We've had our sun and rain, Old Leaf,
And God will send again, Old Leaf,
The sunshine and the rain.

Race after race of leaves and men,
Bloom, wither, and are gone;
As winds and waters rise and fall,
So life and death roll on;
And long as ocean heaves, Old Leaf,
And bud and fade the leaves, Old Leaf,
Will life and death roll on.

How like am I to thee, Old Leaf!
We'll drop together down;
How like art thou to me, Old Leaf!
We'll drop together down.
I'm gray and thou art brown, Old Leaf!
We'll drop together down, Old Leaf,
We'll drop together down!

WILLIAM.

“Lift, lift me up! my broken heart
Must speak before I go:
O Mother! it is death to part
From you—I love you so!

“The doctor shunn'd my eyes, and brook'd
Few words from my despair;
But through and through his heart I look'd,
And saw my coffin there.

“You did not tell me I should die,
You fear'd your child would grieve;
But I am dying! One is nigh
Whom kindness can't deceive.

“The dim light sickens round my bed,
Your looks seem sick with woe,
The air feels sick, as, o'er my head
Its pantings come and go.

“Oh, I am sick in every limb,
Sick, sick in every vein!
My eyes and brain with sickness swim,
My bones are sick with pain!

“What is this weary helplessness,
This breathless toil for breath?
This tossing aching weariness—
What is it?—It is Death!

“Mother, I feel as in a dream;
My dark'ning senses reel,
Like moonlight on a troubled stream:
This cannot last, I feel.

“Yet, it has lasted—Oh, how long
This sick dream seems to me!
My God! why is my weakness strong
To bear such agony?

“'Tis sad to quit a world so fair,
To warm young hearts like mine;
And, doom'd so early, hard to bear
This heavy hand of thine.

“I, like a youngling from the nest,
By rude hands torn away,
Would fain cling to my mother's breast—
But cannot, must not, stay.

“From her and hers, and our sweet home,
My soul seems forced afar,
O'er frozen seas of sable foam,
Through gloom without a star.

“I go where voice was never heard,
Where sunbeam ne'er was seen,
Where dust beholds nor flow'r nor bird,
As if life ne'er had been!

“I go where Thomas went before;
I hear him sob ‘Prepare!’
And I have borne what Thomas bore:
Who knows what he can bear?

“Farewell!—farewell! to meet again!
But, oh, why part to meet?
I know my mother's heart is fain
To share my winding-sheet!

“Can't you die with me, mother? Come
And clasp me!—not so fast!
How close and airless is the room!
O mother!”—It is past!

The breath is gone, the soul is flown,
The lips no longer move;
God o'er my child hath slowly thrown
His veil of dreadful love.

O thou changed dust! pale form that tak'st
All hope from fond complaint!
Thou sad mute eloquence, that mak'st
The listener's spirit faint.

And, oh, ye dreamy fears, that rest
On dark realities!
Why preach ye to the trembling breast,
Truths which are mysteries.

Opium-eater.

SONG.

[Mother! I come from God and bliss]

[_]

Tune.—“Mary's Dream.”

Mother! I come from God and bliss;
O bless me with a mother's kiss!
Though dead, I spurn the tomb's control,
And clasp thee in th' embrace of soul.

No terrors daunt, no cares annoy,
No tyrants vex thy buried boy;
Why mourn for him who smiles on thee?
Dear Mother! weep no more for me.

Where angels dwell—in glen and grove—
I sought the flowers which Mothers love;
And in my garden I have set
The primrose and the violet:
For thee, the woe-mark'd cowslip grows,
For thee the little daisy blows;
When wilt thou come my flowers to see?
Nay, Mother! weep no more for me.

Christ's Mother wept on earth for Him,
When wept in heaven the Seraphim,
And, o'er the Eternal Throne, the light
Grew dim, and sadden'd into night;
But where through bliss heaven's rivers run,
That Mother now is with her Son;
They miss me there, and wait for thee—
Come, Mother, come! why weep for me?

I set a rose our home beside—
I know the poor memorial died;
The frost hath chipp'd my letter'd stone;
My very name from earth is gone!

But in my bower, that knows not woe,
The wild hedge-rose and woodbine glow,
And red-breasts sing of home to me:
Come, Mother, come! we wait for thee.

SONG.

[Man-like her lover was to see]

Man-like her lover was to see,
But stern and cold of soul was he,
Of cold and sordid kindred born;
And when he found the maid was poor,
He pass'd in scorn her decent door,
He dug her grave with scorn.

Unstain'd as vernal snow, she died;
Like snow, that melts on Rother's side,
When April's sun in trouble sets:
Her life was but a day of showers;
And, oh, it closed o'er songless bowers
And drooping violets!

FOOTPATHS.

The poor man's walk they take away,
The solace of his only day,
Where now, unseen, the flowers are blowing,
And, all unheard, the stream is flowing!

In solitude unbroken,
Where rill and river glide,
The lover's elm, itself a grove,
Laments the absent voice of love;
How bless'd I oft sat there with Fanny,
When tiny Jem and little Annie
Were fairies at my side!

O dew-dropp'd rose! O woodbine!
They close the bowery way,
Where oft my father's father stray'd,
And with the leaves and sunbeams play'd,
Or, like the river by the wild wood,
Ran with that river, in his childhood,
The gayest child of May!

Where little feet o'er bluebells,
Pursued the sun-bless'd bee,
No more the child-loved daisy hears
The voice of childhood's hopes and fears;

Thrush! never more, by thy lone dwelling,
Where fountain'd vales thy tale are telling,
Will childhood startle thee?

The poor man's path they take away,
His solace on the Sabbath day;
The sick heart's dewy path of roses,
Where day's eye lingers ere it closes!

TO HOFLAND, THE ARTIST.

Go, Bard and Painter! to the desert. Limn
The mountain's soul, and bid that spirit stay.
So shall thy canvas be a glowing hymn
To God, in his great works; sung every day
By every eye that sees it with the heart,
While age-long years grow grey, and rock-built pomps depart.

ON A HEARTLESS SLANDERER.

“The unco guid” should pray with tears,
That thou may'st live a thousand years,
To hunt out flaws, and snarl, and laugh,
And then write Virtue's epitaph.

EPIGRAM.

[Life is short, and time is swift]

Life is short, and time is swift,
Roses fade, and shadows shift;
But the ocean and the river
Rise and fall and flow for ever:
Bard! not vainly heaves the ocean;
Bard! not vainly flows the river;
Be thy song then like their motion.
Blessing now, and blessing ever.

A POET.

Child of the Hopeless! two hearts broke
When thou wast orphan'd here:
They left a treasure in thy breast,
The soul of Pity's tear.
And thou must be—not what thou wilt;—
Say then, what would'st thou be?
“A Poet!” Oh, if thou would'st steep
Deep thoughts in ecstasy,

100

Nor poet of the rich be thou,
Nor poet of the poor;
Nor harper of the swarming town,
Nor minstrel of the moor;
But be the bard of all mankind,
The prophet of all time,
And tempt the saints in heav'n to steal
Earth's truth-created rhyme.

Be the Columbus of a world
Where wisdom knows not fear;
The Homer of a race of men
Who need not sword and spear.
God in thy heart, and God in them,
If thou to men canst show,
Thou makest mortals angels here,
Their home a heav'n below.

Upon a rock thou sett'st thy feet,
And callest Death thy slave:
“Here lies a man!” Eternity
Shall write upon thy grave;
“A Bard lies here!—O softly tread,
Ye never-wearied years!
And bless, O World, a memory
Immortal as thy tears!”

101

THE SINLESS CAIN.

A BALLAD.

What is that flesh-bound spectre,
Whose thoughts none understand?
The sleeping mastiff heareth
The shunn'd of every land.
The spirit in his famish'd eyes,
Seems bare to sun and sky;
And insolence grows mad with pride,
When that sad form comes nigh.

In every clime and country
There lives a man of pain,
Whose nerves, like chords of lightning,
Bring fire into his brain;
To him a whisper is a wound,
A look or sneer a blow;
More pangs he feels in years or months
Than dunce-throng'd ages know.

Yet Pity speaks, like Hatred,
Of him, where'er he goes;
As if his soul were marble,
Men polish it with woes.

102

Though soft and warm as “weeping blood,”
And true, his heart, as truth,
They coffin winter in his thoughts,
And crown with snow his youth.

He drinks the wine of curses,
He eats reproach for bread,
The fire unblown of slander
Is flame upon his head:
So, in to-morrow's unmade grave,
He counts life's heavy hours;
While rancour makes his bed of snakes,
And mockery calls them flowers.

Amid the bless'd a stranger,
Or foodless with his mate;
From home and hope an exile,
Or paid for love with hate;
All lonely by some throng'd fireside,
Or homeless in his home;
Well may he wish to herd with wolves,
Or marry ocean's foam.

“Why was I given in marriage?
Said Love, when he was born:
Behold him! the Benoni
Of glory's natal morn!

103

The mind of man shall be his shroud;
His life is deathless death;
Bleach'd on the surge of endless years,
He sighs—and hath no breath.

Why marvel that his spirit
Seems dry as dead men's bones?
That maidens fear his gestures,
And start to hear his tones?
Why marvel that, with maniac steps,
He moveth fast and slow,
If he was call'd a man of grief
Six thousand years ago?

By Babylonian rivers,
In Israel's dreadful day,
With soul bow'd like the willows,
For prostrate Solyma,
He, saddest, sweetest bard of all
Whom God's dark wing had swept
From pride into captivity,
Remembering Zion, wept.

Ere Rome was, he wrote ballads
On Troy, the fate-o'erthrown;
And he will sigh for London,
In manless ruin strown;

104

Then o'er Australia, hungering,
Poor waif of land and sea,
Ask bread through valleys yet unbuilt,
Where London is to be.

Or from some Pandour'd palace,
That looks o'er slaves afar,
Say to his royal legions—
“Go, tame the earth with war!”
That unborn scribes may write again
The tale of chain'd or free,
Unless mankind, meantime, recant
Their blood-idolatry.

Behold him! say what art thou
Whose thoughts none understand?
The sleeping mastiff hears thee,
Thou scorn'd of every land.
Famine, that laid thy vitals bare
To wind, and sun, and sky,
Sees nothing sadder than thy cheek,
Or wilder than thine eye.

What art thou? Did thy boyhood
Cull shells on Severn's side?
Art thou “the wondrous stripling
That perish'd in his pride?”

105

Or art thou he whom wonder call'd
The Avonian's youthful peer,
The second Shakspeare? Bread! O Bread!
Poor Otway!—it is here.

Thou changest—Art thou Dante,
The famed in peace and war,
Whom weeps ungrateful Florence,
Beneath her mournful star?
Then hast thou known “how sad the sound
Of feet on strangers' stairs—
How bitter strangers' bread” to him
Who eats it, and despairs!

Thou changest—Trampled Hargraves!
Rejoin thy nameless dust;
Not even to the lifeless
Will cruel man be just.
Changed! thought-worn Crompton! thy sad face
Casts gloom on cloudless day;
Fool, even in death! why linger here,
Trade's meek reproach?—away!

Thou changest—Art thou Byron,
Who barter'd peace for stone?
And did'st thou wed a shadow,
To perish all alone?

106

Changed! Art thou he, once many-thron'd,
Who wifeless, sonless, died,
While son and wife, walk'd, clad in smiles,
His paltry foe beside!

Again thou changest. Sad one!
How want-worn is thine hand!
No diadem thou wearest,
Thou scorn'd of every land!
The eagle in thy famish'd eyes,
Looks faintly on the sky;
And insult waxeth red with rage,
When thy pale form draws nigh.

EPISTLE TO G. C. HOLLAND, ESQ., M.D.,

WITH MRS. LOUDON'S “PHILANTHROPIC ECONOMY; OR, THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS.”

Doctor, I send you, with this scrawl,
A thing by no means common;
For, by the Power that made us all,
I send—a perfect woman!

I do not praise her cheek's rich hue,
Her dress, her air of fashion;
I say not that the soul's deep blue
Melts in her eye of passion;

107

But I commend her to the heart
On which your own reposes,
Because her stern worth can impart
A grace like rain on roses;

And teach parental flowers to teach
The love of gainful duty
To every plant within her reach,
And all their buds of beauty.

The meek-tress'd angel of your home
May take to her own bosom
Thoughts bright and pure as ocean's foam,
And fresh as morning's blossom.

Nor need she dread a rival's look,
Or hate a rival's merit:
I send—a woman in a book!
A world-awaking spirit!

A charm! a host! a scourge! a sting!
By tyrants seen with sadness!
A truth-taught Power! whose mental wing
Shall smite them into madness!

Oh, thanks to Loudon and to thee,
Sword-breaking might of letters!
Enfranchised woman shall set free
The slave who forged her fetters!

108

For Truth is freedom unto those
Whose souls have strength to seize her;
They play a game which none can lose,
Who seek her

Ebenezer.

THE BROKEN HEART.

Stop, passenger! for I am weak,
And heavy are my failing feet—
Stop! till I gather strength to speak:
Twice have I seen thee cross the street,
Where woe and wild-flowers seldom meet.

O give a pallid flower to her
Who ne'er again will see one grow!
Give me a primrose, passenger!
That I may bless it ere I go
To my false love, in death laid low.

Sweet—sweet! it breathes of Rother's bowers,
Where, like the stream, my childhood play'd;
And, happy as the birds and flowers,
My love and I together strayed,
Far from the dim town's deadly shade.

109

Why did he leave my mother's cot?
My days of trouble then began:
I followed—but he knew me not!
The stripling had become a man!
And now in heaven he waits for Ann.

Back from consumption's streeted gloom,
To death's green fields, I fain would fly;
In yon churchyard there is no room
For broken-hearted flowers to sigh,
And look on heaven before they die.

SATURDAY.

To-morrow will be Sunday, Ann—
Get up, my child, with me;
Thy father rose at four o'clock
To toil for me and thee.

The fine folks use the plate he makes,
And praise it when they dine;
For John has taste—so we'll be neat,
Altho' we can't be fine.

Then let us shake the carpet well,
And wash and scour the floor,
And hang the weather-glass he made
Beside the cupboard door.

110

And polish thou the grate, my love;
I'll mend the sofa arm;
The autumn winds blow damp and chill;
And John loves to be warm.

And bring the new white curtain out,
And string the pink tape on—
Mechanics should be neat and clean:
And I'll take heed for John.

And brush the little table, child,
And fetch the ancient books—
John loves to read; and, when he reads,
How like a king he looks!

And fill the music-glasses up
With water fresh and clear;
To-morrow, when he sings and plays,
The street will stop to hear.

And throw the dead flowers from the vase,
And rub it till it glows;
For in the leafless garden yet
He'll find a winter rose.

And lichen from the wood he'll bring,
And mosses from the dell;
And from the sheltered stubble-field,
The scarlet pimpernell.

111

HOLIDAY.

O blessèd! when some holiday
Brings townsmen to the moor,
And, in the sunbeams, brighten up
The sad looks of the poor.
The bee puts on his richest gold,
As if that worker knew—
How hardly (and for little) they
Their sunless task pursue.
But from their souls the sense of wrong
On dove-like pinion flies;
And, throned o'er all, Forgiveness sees
His image in their eyes.
Soon tired, the street-born lad lies down
On marjoram and thyme,
And through his grated fingers sees
The falcon's flight sublime;
Then his pale eyes, so bluely dull,
Grow darkly blue with light,
And his lips redden like the bloom
O'er miles of mountains bright.
The little lovely maiden-hair
Turns up its happy face,
And saith unto the poor man's heart,
“Thou'rt welcome to this place.”

112

The infant river leapeth free,
Amid the bracken tall,
And cries, “FOR EVER there is One
Who reigneth over all;
And unto Him, as unto me,
Thou'rt welcome to partake
His gift of light, his gift of air,
O'er mountain, glen, and lake.
Our Father loves us, want-worn man!
And know thou this from me:
The pride that makes thy pain his couch,
May wake to envy thee.
Hard, hard to bear are want and toil,
As thy worn features tell;
But wealth is armed with fortitude,
And bears thy sufferings well.”

SONG.

[Nor alehouse scores, nor alehouse broils]

Nor alehouse scores, nor alehouse broils
Turn my good woman pale;
For in my pantry I've a keg
Of home-brewed ale.
The devil keeps a newspaper
Where tavern-wranglers rail,
Because it tempts his doomed and lost
To drink bad ale.

113

But I read news at second-hand,
Nor find it flat and stale;
While Hume's or Hindley's health I drink
In home-brew'd ale.
My boys and girls delight to see
My friends and me regale,
While Nancy, curtsying, deigns to sip
Our home-brew'd ale;
And when the widow'd pauper comes,
To tell her monthly tale,
I sometimes cheer her with a drop
Of home-brew'd ale;
It tells her heart of better days,
Ere she grew thin and pale,
When James, before the banker fail'd,
Drank home-brew'd ale.
I'll melt no money in my drink,
Where ruffians fight and rail:
The gauger never dipp'd his stick
In my cheap ale.
But when we household suffrage get,
And honest men prevail;
Then, hey, mechanics, for free trade,
And cheaper ale!

114

RUB OR RUST.

Idler, why lie down to die?
Better rub than rust.
Hark! the lark sings in the sky—
“Die when die thou must!
Day is waking, leaves are shaking,
Better rub than rust.”

In the grave there's sleep enough—
“Better rub than rust:
Death, perhaps, is hunger-proof,
Die when die thou must;
Men are mowing, breezes blowing,
Better rub than rust.”

He who will not work shall want;
Nought for nought is just—
Won't do, must do, when he can't;
“Better rub than rust.
Bees are flying, sloth is dying,
Better rub than rust.”

115

THE HOME OF TASTE.

You seek the home of taste, and find
The proud mechanic there,
Rich as a king, and less a slave,
Throned in his elbow-chair!
Or on his sofa reading Locke,
Beside his open door!
Why start?—why envy worth like his
The carpet on his floor?

You seek the home of sluttery—
“Is John at home?” you say.
“No, sir; he's at the ‘Sportsman's Arms;’
The dog-fight's o'er the way.”
O lift the workman's heart and mind
Above low sensual sin!
Give him a home! the home of taste!
Outbid the house of gin!

116

O give him taste! it is the link
Which binds us to the skies—
A bridge of rainbows, thrown across
The gulph of tears and sighs;
Or like a widower's little one—
An angel in a child—
That leads him to her mother's chair,
And shows him how she smiled.

This is not an overcharged picture of the condition of some of the mechanics of Sheffield.

O that I could express in rhyme this sentiment, as it came, clothed in beauty and holiness, from the lips of Dr. Knight, at our last cutlers' feast!

THE SUMMER-HOUSE.

Go, Mary, to the summer-house,
And sweep the wooden floor,
And light the little fire, and wash
The pretty varnish'd door;
For there the London gentleman,
Who lately lectured here,
Will smoke a pipe with Jonathan,
And taste our home-brew'd beer.

Go, bind the dahlias, that our guest
May praise their fading dyes;
But strip of every wither'd bloom
The flower that won the prize!

117

And take thy father's knife, and prune
The roses that remain;
And let the fallen hollyhock
Peep through 'the broken pane.

And spunge his view of Blacklowscar,
Till bright, on moor and town,
The painted sun, and stormy crest,
O'er leagues of cloud look down.
He rose at three, to work till four—
The evenings still are long—
And still for every lingering flower
The redbreast hath a song.

I'll follow in an hour or two;
Be sure I will not fail
To bring his flute and spying-glass,
The pipes and bottled ale;
And that grand music which he made
About the child in bliss;
Our guest shall hear it sung and play'd,
And feel how grand it is!

118

SONG.

[Let idlers despair! there is hope for the wise]

Let idlers despair! there is hope for the wise,
Who rely on their own hearts and hands;
And we read in their souls, by the flash of their eyes,
That our land is the noblest of lands.
Let knaves fear for England, whose thoughts wear a mask,
While a war on our trenchers they wage;
Free trade and no favour is all that we ask!
Fair play, and the world for a stage!

Secure in their baseness, the lofty and bold
Look down on their victims beneath;
Like snow on a skylight, exalted and cold,
They shine o'er the shadow of death;
In the warm sun of knowledge, that kindles our blood,
And fills our cheer'd spirits with day,
Their splendour, contemn'd by the brave and the good,
Like a palace of ice melts away.

Our compass, which married the East to the West,
Our press, which makes many minds one,
Our steam-sinew'd giant that toils without rest,
Proclaim that our perils are gone.

119

We want but the right, which the God of the right
Denies not to birds and to bees;
The charter of Nature! that bids the wing'd light
Fly chainless as winds o'er the seas.

SONG.

[With hair grown grey, we look behind]

With hair grown grey, we look behind
On passions whose wild reign is o'er—
Virtues, whose failure stings the mind,
And troubles that molest no more:

Slow pass'd the days of toil and care;
Yet, oh! how fast they seem to fly,
When we look back on our despair,
And call it hope, yet know not why.

And still they pass, and shade on shade
Deepens, their woe-mark path along;
But Thou, O God! art strong to aid;
Ay, and in Thee the weak are strong.

120

SONG.

[Free Trade, like religion, hath doctrines of love]

Free Trade, like religion, hath doctrines of love,
And the promise of plenty and health;
It proclaims, while the angels look down from above,
The marriage of Labour and Wealth.

Free Trade, like religion, hath doctrines of peace,
Universal as God's vital air;
And, throned o'er doom'd evil, he hails its increase,
While his enemies only despair.

By all who their blood on Truth's altars resign'd,
To enfranchise a sin-fetter'd race!
Our sons shall be freed from the curse of the blind,
And redeem'd from the bonds of the base.

The ark of our triumph, far, far as seas roll,
Shall ride o'er the wealth-freighted waves;
The chain'd of the drones be the chainless in soul,
And tyrants made men by their slaves.

The hall of our fathers, with heav'n for its dome,
And the steps of its portals the sea—
Of labour and comfort will then be the home,
And the temple where worship the Free.

121

SONG.

[O'er Polonia's plains of glory]

O'er Polonia's plains of glory,
Freedom tower'd—a stately tree;
From all storms, a sky of branches
Shelter'd mine and shelter'd me.

Underneath the tree of ages,
Many a merry song sung we;
Carved his rind, and kiss'd his shadow;
Oh, we loved the glorious tree!

Now, alas! no sky of branches
Shelters mine and shelters me!
Now, alas! the tree of Poland
Low is fall'n, as low can be!

And, as on Euphrates' waters,
When the mournful moonbeam slept,
Israel's wanderers, sad for Zion,
With the weeping willows wept,

So we mourn, and, all unheeded,
Make our roof the unpillar'd sky;
So we roam, and friendless, hopeless,
Shed the tear of memory.

122

THE WINTER SPEEDWELL.

Ye wintry flowers, whose pensive dyes
Wake when the summer's lily sleeps!
Ye are like orphans, in whose eyes
Their low-laid mother's beauty weeps.

Oh, not like stars that come at eve,
Through dim clouds glimmering one by one,
And teach the failing heart to grieve,
Because another day is gone!

But like the hopes that linger yet
Upon the grave of sorrow's love,
And dare Affection to forget
The form below, the soul above;

Or like the thoughts that bid Despair
Repose in faith on Mercy's breast;
Givers of wings—from toil and care—
To fly away and be at rest!

123

A GHOST AT NOON.

The day was dark, save when the beam
Of noon through darkness broke;
In gloom I sate, as in a dream,
Beneath my orchard oak;
Lo! splendour, like a spirit, came,
A shadow like a tree!
While there I sat, and named her name,
Who once sat there with me.

I started from the seat in fear;
I look'd around in awe;
But saw no beauteous spirit near,
Though all that was I saw;
The seat, the tree, where oft, in tears,
She mourn'd her hopes o'erthrown,
Her joys cut off in early years,
Like gather'd flowers half-blown.

Again the bud and breeze were met,
But Mary did not come;
And e'en the rose, which she had set,
Was fated ne'er to bloom!

124

The thrush proclaim'd, in accents sweet,
The winter's reign was o'er;
The bluebells throng'd around my feet,
But Mary came no more.

I think, I feel—but when will she
Awake to thought again?
A voice of comfort answers me,
That God does nought in vain:
He wastes nor flower, nor bud, nor leaf,
Nor wind, nor cloud, nor wave;
And will He waste the hope which grief
Hath planted in the grave?

SONG.

[Like a rootless rose or lily]

Like a rootless rose or lily;
Like a sad and life-long sigh;
Like a bird pursued and weary,
Doom'd to flutter till it die;
Landless, restless, joyless, hopeless,
Gasping still for bread and breath,
To their graves by trouble hunted,
Albion's helots toil for death.

125

Tardy day of hoarded ruin,
Wild Niagara of blood!
Coming sea of headlong millions,
Vainly seeking work and food!
Why is famine reaped for harvest?
Planted curses always grow;
Where the plough makes want its symbol,
Fools will gather as they sow.

SONG.

[Sleep, sleep my love! thy gentle bard]

Sleep, sleep my love! thy gentle bard
Shall wake, his fever'd maid to guard:
The moon in heaven rides high;
The dim stars through thy curtains peep;
Whilst thou, poor sufferer, triest to sleep,
They hear thy feeble cry.

She sleeps! but pain, though baffled, streaks,
With intermitting blush, her cheeks,
And haunts her troubled dream:
Yet shalt thou wake to health, my love,
And seek again the bluebell'd grove
And music-haunted stream.

126

HE WENT.

He left me sad, and cross'd the deep,
A home for me to seek;
He never will come back again;
My heart, my heart will break!
To see me toil for scanty food,
He could not bear, he said,
But promised to come back again,
His faithful Ann to wed.

Bad men had turn'd into a hell
The country of his birth;
And he is gone who should have stay'd
To make it heaven on earth:
A heaven to me it would have been
Had he remain'd with me;
O bring my William back again,
Thou wild heart-breaking sea!

He should have stay'd to overthrow
The men who do us wrong;
When such as he fly far away,
They make oppressors strong:

127

But, oh, though worlds of cruel waves
Between our torn hearts rise,
My William, thou art present still
Before my weeping eyes.

Why hast thou sought a foreign land,
And left me here to weep?
Man! man! thou should'st have sent our foes
Beyond that dismal deep!
For when I die, who then will toil,
My mother's life to save?
What hope will then remain for her?
A trampled workhouse grave!

HE WROTE.

He did not come, but letters came,
And money came in one;
But he would quickly come, they said—
“When I,” she sigh'd, “am gone!”
Thenceforth she almost welcomed death,
With feelings high and brave;
Because she knew that her true love
Would weep upon her grave.

128

“No parish hirelings,” oft she said,
“My wasted corpse shall bear;
The honest labour of my hands
Hath purchased earth and prayer:
Nor childless will my mother be;”
The dying sufferer smiled;
“Thou wilt not want, for William's heart
Is wedded to thy child!”

But Death seem'd loath to strike a form
So beautiful and young;
And o'er her long, with lifted dart,
The pensive tyrant hung;
And life in her seem'd like a sleep,
As she drew nearer home;
But when she waked, more eagerly
She ask'd, “Is William come?”

“Is William come?” she wildly ask'd;
The answer still was, “No!”—
She's dead!—but through her closing lids
The tears were trickling slow;
And like the fragrance of a rose,
Whose snowy life is o'er,
Pale beauty linger'd on the lips
Which he will kiss no more.

129

HE CAME.

At length he came. None welcomed him;
The decent door was closed;
But near it stood a matron meek,
With pensive looks, composed:
She knew his face, though it was changed,
And gloom came o'er her brow;
“They're gone,” she said, “but you're in time;
They're in the churchyard now.”

He reach'd the grave, and sternly bade
The impatient shovel wait:
“Ann Spencer, agèd twenty-five,”
He read upon the plate.
“Why did'st thou seek a foreign land,
And leave me here to die?”
The sad inscriptions seem'd to say—
But he made no reply.

Her mother saw him through her tears,
But not a word she said—
Nor could he know that days had pass'd
Since last she tasted bread.

130

She stood in comely mourning there,
Self-stay'd in her distress;
The dead maid's toil bought earth and prayer;
Sleep on, proud Britoness!

But thou, meet parent of the dead!
Where now wilt thou abide?
With William in a foreign land;
Or by thy daughter's side?
Oh! William's broken heart is sworn
To cross no more the foam!
Full soon will men cry—“Hark! again!
Three now! they're all at home!”

ON THE DEATH OF EARL FITZWILLIAM.

O ye who died, trampled, at Peterloo,
By England's Juggernaut! Ye too who drank
Slowly life's bitterest cup, not drugg'd with rue,
But brimm'd with hopeless pain; and ye who sank
In blood at Wexford, rolling rank o'er rank,
Like storm-swept waves! the golden door throw wide,
(It needs no golden key,) and hail and thank
The meek, the merciful, who ne'er denied
His aid to want and grief, when they for succour cried.

131

But ye who plough the flint with curses! ye
Who scalding tears o'er wrongs inflicted weep,
And drink them from your eyes of misery,
To quench with fire the burning soul, or creep
To cold discomfort's bed, and, dreaming, steep
Your straw in agonies! keep, pallid slaves,
Who still wear chains! your worm that dies not keep!
And kneeling, in your hearts, on tyrants' graves,
Swear deathless hate to them, their gods, their fools and knaves.

SABBATH MORNING.

Rise, young Mechanic! Idle darkness leaves
The dingy town, and cloudless morning glows:
O rise and worship Him who spins and weaves
Into the petals of the hedge-side rose
Day's golden beams and all-embracing air!
Rise! for the morn of Sabbath riseth fair!
The clouds expect thee—Rise! the stonechat hops
Among the mosses of thy granite chair:
Go tell the plover, on the mountain tops,
That we have cherish'd nests and hidden wings.
Wings? Ay, like those on which the seraph flings
His sun-bright speed from star to star abroad;
And we have Music, like the whisperings
Of streams in Heav'n—our labour is an ode

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Of sweet sad praise to Him who loves the right.
And cannot He who spins the beauteous light,
And weaves the air into the wild flowers hues,
Give to thy soul the mountain torrent's might,
Or fill thy veins with sunbeams, and diffuse
Over thy thoughts the greenwood's melody?
Yea, this and more He can and will for thee,
If thou wilt read, engraven on the skies
And restless waves, that “sloth is misery;
And that our worth from our necessities
Flows, as the rivers from his clouds descend!”

TASTE.

When, o'er her dying child, we hear
The hopeless mother sigh;
“There is a better world,” we sob;
“Can such affection die?”
Perhaps it can—for wolves and worms
Have their affections too;
And passion sometimes loves the false
Even better than the true.

But Taste, in its infinity,
Its beauty, and its might,
Walks thro' the beams of common day
In robes of heavenly light:

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A spirit—ay, a deathless Eve,
To man's pure bosom given:
They meet—earth's Eden is not lost!
They part—to meet in Heaven!

What power like that which turns to bliss
The mournful and the dull,
And from the dust beneath our feet
Calls up the beautiful,
Can bid the hopes of frailty soar,
Undying life, to thee?
Pride dies with man; but Taste predicts
His immortality.

THE WOODBINES OF JUNE.

Broom glow'd in the valley,
For William and Sally,
The rose with the rill was in tune;
Love fluttering their bosoms,
As breezes the blossoms,
They stray'd thro' the woodbines of June.

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Oft, oft he caress'd her,
And to his heart press'd her,
The rose with the woodbine was twined;
Her cheek on his bosom,
Like dew on the blossom,
Enchanted the tale-telling wind.

Poor Sally was bonny,
But Mary had money,
Ay, money, and beauty beside;
And wilt thou, sweet Mary,
Thou fond and unwary,
Deprive the wise fool of his bride?

Yes, bee-haunted valley!
Poor heart-broken Sally
No more, with her William, will stray—
“He marries another!
I'm dying!—O mother!
Take, take that sweet woodbine away!”

THE REJECTED.

His hand clasp'd in hers, she look'd up in the face
That once gazed as fondly on me;
Two boys and a girl, in their butterfly chase,
Ran before them with laughter and glee.

135

He saw me—he knew me—his brown cheek turn'd pale,
“Oh, still doth he love me?” I sigh'd;
But my heart how it sank! and I felt my knees fail,
As I look'd on his beautiful bride.

In their comely attire, and their calm thankful air,
The tale of their virtues was told;
While, childless and mateless, in want and despair,
Was the woman who spurn'd him for gold.

Oh, even at the altar, when coldly I gave
My hand to the thing I had bought,
Remorse told my heart, in a voice from my grave,
That I barter'd a shadow for nought!

Nought! call ye it nought to applaud what ye hate?
To honour, yet feign to contemn?
To borrow of servants? and, apeing the great,
Envy all that's look'd down on by them?

Till at last; but, O Henry! my doom I could bear,
Might I know that thou weepest for me;
And feel, while the robe of my weaving I wear,
That I still am remember'd by thee?

That while thou tread'st humbly, with truth for thy stay,
The path that to competence led,
Thou pitiest the proud one who threw thee away,
And think'st of her desolate bed.

136

RAINBOWED MAY.

Now, over violets the chaffinch hops,
And bursts of sunshine startle wood and copse,
With bluebells gay;
For heav'n is dim with showers, and mountain-tops
Look down on rainbow'd May:
Haste then, mechanic, take thy spade and hoes;
Haste to thy garden, while thy soul o'erflows
With hope and joy;
And with thee take, rejoicing as he goes,
Thy heart-awaken'd boy.

Lo! his cheek reddens as he lifts his eyes!
He grasps his rusted rake with joyful cries
And sinews stark;
And to his shout his smoke-dried dog replies,
With dusty frisk and bark;
For to the garden, where the red-breast hops,
Through gleams of light that startle wood and copse
They take their way;
While, bathed in dewy air, the mountain tops
Look down on rainbow'd May.

137

THE SPIRIT OF THE FIRST EMIGRANT.

Upon the dreadful battle-field, methought,
High on Breed's Hill, after the fight was done,
Amid the dead, yet fearing not the dead,
I stood before a form, that sadden'd night.
“Featureless presence! Are thy tresses mist?
Or hast thou lineaments? The blast unveils thee,
Visage of mystery! and swirls the cloud
That seems thy carpet.” From the earth it rose
Slow, from a nameless tomb, with human gore
Polluted in the fight of yesterday,
Nor scatter'd the red death-dews from a flower;
A dim form, mingling with the tempest's light,
All indistinct, as the moon's shrouded beams,
Seen thro' the snow flakes, when they fluttering fall,
Muffling the mountain echoes silently.
The seeming brow was turn'd to heav'n, the hands
In deprecation waved. “Cloud-involved moon!
Stars, that from earth's blood-bolter'd face withdraw
Your blasted beams,” exclaim'd a hollow voice;
“For peace I cross'd the sable rolling seas,
Left country, friends, all, but my God, for peace
To worship Him in truth and purity.
I first, from persecution flying, rear'd
The white man's home amid Columbian woods,

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God's altar, in the unhewn temple wild
Of Nature. There, where bright Connecticut
Waters a sin-found Eden, with my sons
I kneel'd, and gave the God of deserts praise.
I kiss'd their hands; I bade them live in love,
And sometimes think of me; and then I slept.
They wept; they dug, near ocean's echoing shore,
My narrow bed of rest; and unknown flowers
Bloom'd o'er it, drooping lonely. But the blood
Of murder hath profaned the shuddering tomb,
And call'd the slumberer from his bed of worms.
In vain for peace, for peace I cross'd the seas,
And vainly left, far east, my mother's grave;
Nor may my children's children dwell in peace,
Nor worship God in truth and purity.”

HANNAH RATCLIFFE.

If e'er she knew an evil thought,
She spoke no evil word.
Peace to the gentle! she hath sought
The bosom of her Lord.

She lived to love, and loved to bless
Whatever He hath made;
But early on her gentleness
His chastening hand He laid.

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Like a maim'd linnet, nursed with care,
She graced a home of bliss;
And dwelt in thankful quiet there,
To show what goodness is.

Her presence was a noiseless power,
That sooth'd us day by day—
A modest, meek, secluded flower,
That smiled, and pass'd away.

So meek she was, that, when she died,
We miss'd the lonely one,
As when we feel, on Loxley's side,
The silent sunshine gone.

But memory brings to sunless bowers
The light they knew before;
And Hannah's quiet smile is ours,
Though Hannah is no more.

Her pale face visits yet my heart
And oft my guest will be;
O White Rose! thou shalt not depart;
But wither here with me.

140

THE WAY BROAD-LEAF.

When Winter howls along the hill,
We find the broad-leaf'd plantain still;
The way broad-leaf, of herbs the chief,
We never miss the way broad-leaf;
'Tis common as the poor.

To soothe the cruel scorner's woes,
Beneath the scorner's feet it grows;
Neglected, trampled, still it thrives,
A creature of unnumber'd lives;
How like the trampled poor!

When roses die, it still remains;
Hoof-crush'd, beneath unpitying rains,
Roll'd o'er by ringing carts and wains,
It suffers still, but ne'er complains;
Just like the helpless poor!

Scorn'd by the bluebells—or bent o'er
Their graves beneath the sycamore—
Meek, modest, silent, useful still,
It loves to do the gentle will
Of Him who loves the poor!

141

PROLOGUE TO WATT TYLER.

A PLAY, BY JOHN WATKINS.

While they whose sordid lusts oppress a state,
Forestall, because they dread, the public hate,
Slow to resent are nations; man endures
The curse of bondage, better than he cures.
We tremble when the ocean, white with foam,
Hails the deep voice of rivers roaring home,
And the black sky, which fire's wild instinct rends,
Like a Niagara of clouds descends;
But calm succeeds, the mountain'd plain subsides,
In music soon the meeken'd river glides,
And when the wholesome hurricane is o'er,
Earth wears a look more lovely than before.
Not always thus, when nations, stung to rage,
On kings and priests a war of vengeance wage;
E'en though triumphant, oft with ruin fraught,
The human tempest strengthens what it smote;
O'er rout or victory, derision names
A Louis Philippe, or a second James;
A Cromwell or Napoleon, cursed with might,
Turns hope to darkness, with portentous light,
Plague from the enthusiast's sinless Eden brings,
And plumed by Freedom, tramples on her wings.

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Too seldom, if the righteous fight is won,
Rebellion boasts a Tell or Washington;
But if the champion of the People fail,
Foes only live to tell Misfortune's tale,
And meanness blots, while none to praise is nigh,
The hero's virtues, with a coward's lie.
To-night we bring, from his insulted grave,
A man too honest to become a slave:
How few admire him! few, perhaps, bewail'd!
He was a vulgar hero—for he fail'd:
Such glorious honours soothe the patriot's shade!
Of such materials History is made!
But had his followers triumph'd, where he fell
Fame would have hymn'd her village Hampden well,
And Watt the Tyler been a William Tell.

143

SONG.

[Bright Word of God! that shin'st on high]

Bright Word of God! that shin'st on high,
Beneath his footstool of the sky!
Thou say'st He made thee bright for all,
For rich and poor, for great and small;
And canst thou lie?

Lo! on the prisoner's dungeon'd eye,
Cut off from heaven's warm blasonry,
Thy beams of glory cannot fall!
Yet say'st thou, light was made for all;
And dost thou lie?

The sons of Want and Labour sigh
For air, for light, and, poison'd, die!
Life is to them a funeral pall!
Yet say'st thou, light is bright for all;
O do not lie!

To thee the lark, the eagle cry,
The tiny wren, the little fly;
On thee the seas, the mountains call:
Thou say'st, God made thee bright for all,
And dost not lie.

144

CORONATION ODE.

WRITTEN FOR THE SHEFFIELD WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATION.

Victoria, cypress-crown'd! thou good in vain!
How the red wreath, with which thy name is bound—
The page which tells the first deeds of thy reign,
Black and blood-bloated—cheer the Calmuck hound,
Whose growl o'er Brunswick hails thee, cypress-crown'd!

Canada weeps—and yet her dead are free!
Throned o'er their blood! who would not be a Queen?
The Queen of new-made graves, who would not be?
Of glory's royal flowers the loveliest seen!
So young! yet all that the deplored have been!

Here too, O Queen, thy woe-worn people feel
The load they bear is more than they can bear!
Beneath it twenty million workers reel!
While fifty thousand idlers rob and glare,
And mock the sufferings which they yet may share!

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The drama soon will end. Four acts are past:
The curtain rises o'er embracing foes!
But each dark smiler hugs his dagger fast!
While Doom prepares his match, and waits the close!
Queen of the Earthquake! would'st thou win or lose?

Still shall the Car of Juggernaut roll on,
O'er broken hearts and children born in vain,
Banner'd with fire! while “thousand men as one”
Sink down beneath its coward wheels of pain,
That crush our souls, through crunching blood and brain!

Stop!—for to ruin Antoinette was led,
By men, who only when they died awoke!
Base nobles who, o'er France vain darkness spread,
And, goading her faint steeds with stroke on stroke,
Loaded the wain—until the axles broke!

Stop!—“for the blasting engine's iron Laws,”
Then saved not thrones from outraged Heav'n's control,
When hunger urged up to the cannon's jaws
A sea of men, with only one wild soul!
Hark! still I hear the echo of its roll!

146

VERSES

ON THE OPENING OF THE SHEFFIELD AND ROTHERHAM RAILWAY.

Forests!—thou river'd landscape wide!—
Beneath storm-threatening skies,
I stand on war-mark'd Winco's side,
And see, with gladdened eyes,
Another triumph for mankind—
Another victory of mind
O'er man's worst enemies.

They come! the shrieking steam ascends
Slow moves the banner'd train;
They rush! the towering vapour bends—
The kindled wave again
Screams over thousands, thronging all
To witness now the funeral
Of law-created pain.

Behold it—Osgathorpe, behold!
Look down, and cry “All hail!”
Skies! brighten into blue and gold,
O'er all the living vale!

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Wan, lingering foxglove! you, ye trees!
Thou wood of Tinsley! tell the breeze
That hell's dark cheek turns pale;

For Mind shall conquer time and space;
Bid East and West shake hands!
Bring, over Ocean, face to face,
Earth's ocean-sever'd strands;
And, on his path of iron, bear
Words that shall wither, in despair,
The tyrants of all lands.

Eternal River!—roaring still,
As roar'd thy foamy wave
When first each wild-rose-skirted rill
Heard moorland echoes rave;—
Thou seest, amid thy meadows green,
The goodliest sight that earth hath seen
Since man made fire his slave.

Fire-kindling Man! how weak wast thou
Ere thou hadst conquer'd fire!
How like a worm, on Canklow's brow,
Thou shrank'st from winter's ire!
Or heard'st the torrent-gathering night
Awake the wolf, with thee to fight,
Where these broad shades aspire!

148

How dismal was thy airy hall,
Thy throne for hearthless kings!
But glorious was thy funeral pall;
And there are direr things
Than thy red-rule of forest law,
Thy last home in the raven's maw,
Thy hearse of living wings.

Yes he whom scorn and hunger ban,
Whom ease and law belie,
Who vainly asks his fellow man
For “leave to toil” and die,
Is sadder, weaker, than wast thou,
When naked here, on Winco's brow,
Thou didst the wolf defy.

In vain thou mak'st the air a slave
That works and will not tire;
And burn'st the flame-destroying wave,
And rid'st on harness'd fire;
In vain—if millions toil half-fed,
And Crompton's children, begging bread,
Wealth-hated, curse their sire.

Fire-kindling man! thy life-stream runs,
Even yet, through sighs and groans:
Too long thy Watts and Stephensons,
With brains have fatten'd drones;

149

O Genius! all too long, too oft,
At thee the souls of clay have scoff'd,
And sold thy little ones!

Sold them to Misery's dungeon gloom;
To Rapine's menial blow;
To beggary's brawl-fill'd lodging-room,
Where Famine curses woe;
Then to the death-den's workhouse floor,
To which good Christians bring the poor,
By stages sure and slow.

But, lo! the train!—On! onward!—still
Loud shrieks the kindled wave;
And back fly hamlet, tree, and hill,
White steam, and banners brave;
And thoughts on vapoury wings are hurl'd,
To shake old thrones and change a world,
And dig Abaddon's grave.

Mountains, that were when graves were not!
Time-humbled Templestowe,
Thou tell'st of eagled Rome and Scott,
What dateless years shall know!
Lo! Mind prepares the final fall;
The many-nation'd funeral
Of law-created woe!

150

Eternal River!—roaring now,
As erst, in earlier years,
Ere grief began, with youthful brow,
To live an age of tears;
Thou hear'st, beneath this brightening sky,
A voice of Power that will not die
While man hath hopes and fears.

He, (conquering fire, and time, and space,)
Bids East and West shake hands;
Brings, over ocean, face to face,
Earth's ocean-sever'd strands;
And, on his iron road, will bear
Words that shall wither, in despair,
The tyrants of all lands.

The morning was clouded, but burst into sudden splendour over the rushing trains.

A beautiful eminence between Sheffield and Winco-bank, and, like the latter, overlooking a landscape of equal beauty.

The remains of a fortification at the Ickles, near Rotherham. See Scott's novel of “Ivanhoe.”

HYMN.

[Another wave is swallow'd by the sea]

Another wave is swallow'd by the sea
Of sumless waves!
Another year, thou past Eternity,
Hath roll'd o'er new-made graves!
They open yet—to bid the living weep,
Where tears are vain;
While I, unswept into the ruthless deep,
Storm-tried and sad, remain.

151

Why am I spared? Surely to wear away,
By useful deeds,
Vile traces, left beneath th' upbraiding spray,
Of empty shells and weeds.
If there are deeds, which no repentance need,
And all can do,
Why should one heart with vain contrition bleed,
Self-tried, and found untrue?
But there are things which time devoureth not;
Thoughts, whose green youth
Flowers o'er the ashes of the unforgot,
And words, whose fruit is truth.
Are ye not imaged in the eternal sea,
Things of to-day?
Deeds which are harvest for Eternity!
Ye cannot pass away.

TRAFALGAR.

Above the howl of ocean
And frowning Trafalgar,
From bursting cloud, went forth the voice
Of elemental war;

152

And, louder than the tempest,
From man, the insect, came,
Beneath the frown of Trafalgar,
His deadly voice of flame.

But, ere it rent the blackness
Which God's stern brow cast wide,
“Now, Victory or Westminster!”
Said Nelson, in his pride.

“My comrades, do your duty!
Or what will England say?”
“They shall!” cried accents from the deep,
Where dead men weltering lay.

Red Horror tore the tempest;
Down stoop'd both sea and sky;
And, like a flood on Collingwood,
The clouds rush'd from on high.

Life pledged for life, arm'd thousands
Join'd then in horrid strife.
O Life, thou art an awful thing!—
For what is God but Life?

Shouts, groans, and man's dread thunder,
Made up one dismal cry:
The affrighted storm ask'd what it meant,
And Death made no reply.

153

But, on the grave of thousands,
A silent spirit trod;
He clasp'd them in th' embrace of Death—
And what is Death but God?

He cared not for their glory,
He ask'd not of their cause;
While, right or wrong, the weak and strong
Obeyed alike his laws.

One tyrant lost his war-ships;
Worse tyrants summ'd their gains;
And toil-worn nations sang and danced,
(As maniacs dance,) in chains!

How like an empty bubble
The turmoil pass'd away!
“Where are the weak?” said sun and cloud—
“The mighty!—where are they?”

And birds of light and calmness—
Where dolphins gamboll'd free,
And heroes in their glory lay—
Flew over the smooth sea.

And, from his throne of silence,
The God of Peace look'd down,
Though sternly, on their bed of death,
With pity in his frown.

154

For Spaniard, Frank, and Briton,
All peaceful in one grave,
Like babies in their nurses' arms,
Slept under the green wave.

Image of God! through horrors
“That make the angels weep,”
Why seek the gift that comes unsought—
His boon of dreadful sleep?

“England expects every man to do his duty.”

HYMN.

[Nurse of the Pilgrim Sires, who sought]

Nurse of the Pilgrim Sires, who sought,
Beyond the Atlantic foam,
For fearless truth and honest thought,
A refuge and a home!
Who would not be of them or thee
A not unworthy son,
That hears, amid the chain'd or free,
The name of Washington?

Cradle of Shakspeare, Milton, Knox!
King-shaming Cromwell's throne!
Home of the Russells, Watts, and Lockes!
Earth's greatest are thine own:

155

And shall thy children forge base chains
For men that would be free?
No! by thy Elliots, Hampdens, Vanes,
Pyms, Sydneys, yet to be!

No!—for the blood which kings have gorged
Hath made their victims wise,
While every lie that Fraud hath forged
Veils wisdom from his eyes:
But time shall change the despot's mood:
And Mind is mightiest then,
When turning evil into good,
And monsters into men.

If round the soul the chains are bound
That hold the world in thrall—
If tyrants laugh when men are found
In brutal fray to fall—
Lord! let not Britain arm her hands,
Her sister states to ban;
But bless through her all other lands,
Thy family of Man.

For freedom if thy Hampden fought,
For peace if Falkland fell;
For peace and love if Bentham wrote,
And Burns sang wildly well—

156

Let Knowledge, strongest of the strong,
Bid hate and discord cease;
Be this the burden of her song:
“Love, Liberty, and Peace!”

Then, Father, will the nations all,
As with the sound of seas,
In universal festival,
Sing words of joy, like these:—
Let each love all, and all be free,
Receiving as they give;
Lord!—Jesus died for Love and Thee!
So let thy children live!

LINES.

WRITTEN FOR THE SHEFFIELD MECHANICS' FIRST EXHIBITION.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter,
Come duly, as of old;
Winds blow, suns set, and morning saith,
“Ye hills, put on your gold!”
Gray Stanage and his mountain'd sea
Roll, granite-billow'd, ever;
And Loxley, Sheaf, and Ewden, leave
Their dewy valleys never.

157

The song of Homer liveth;
Dead Solon is not dead;
Thy splendid name Pythagoras,
O'er realms of suns is spread!
If Milton's lay could pass from earth,
Heaven's bards that lay might cherish;
And Watt's great deed hath changed a world,
And will not, cannot perish.

But Babylon and Memphis
Are letters traced in dust:—
Read them, earth's tyrants!—ponder well
The might in which ye trust!
They rose, while all the depths of guilt
Their vain creators sounded:
They fell, because on fraud and force
Their corner-stones were founded.

Truth, Mercy, Knowledge, Justice,
Are powers that ever stand;
They build their temples in the soul,
They work with God's right hand;
Their sword is thought! the minds they teach
Grow daily, hourly wiser;
But Memphian Kings found ignorance
Their true and last adviser!

158

Then, Trader, Lord, or Yeoman,
If thou a patriot art—
If thou would'st weep to see the light
Of England's name depart,
Her streets blood-flooded, and her plains
In boundless conflagration—
Instruct her poor benighted sons,
And save a sinking nation!

Shall we not lift the lowly,
Whom law and custom ban?
O help us to exalt and praise
God, in the mind of man!
Art thou a Man? Then, haste to aid,
Perchance, a sireless brother!
And in his parent, worn with want,
“O son! behold thy mother!”

Friends of the chain'd in spirit!
Set free our soul-bound slaves!
And a redeemed and thankful world
Shall smile upon your graves;
Age after age shall see your deeds
In useful beauty growing—
Still gathering strength to save and bless—
Like streams to ocean flowing.

159

Ye too, whose aims are selfish,
Who plough that ye may reap!
Come hither! here for harvest sow,
And give to get and keep!
Bless and be bless'd, thou sordid son,
And thou more sordid father!
Plant gloom with light—and you and yours
A thousandfold shall gather.

Like sunbeams to the moorland,
Or rest to weary woe,
Or silence to the Sabbath hills,
Your names will come and go!
Your worth, like Ewden, lingering
Around his hawthorn blossoms—
Or Stanage beckoning to his clouds—
Shall live in other bosoms.

HYMN.

[Lord! to the rose thy light and air]

Lord! to the rose thy light and air
Impart the glory which they share;
To air's embrace her sweets she owes—
With morn's warm kiss her beauty glows.

160

Hark! how it floats the vale along!
'Tis music's voice! 'tis Nature's song!
It charms the woods, the rocks, the skies;
And, hark! how echo's soul replies!

The lone flower hears the skylark sing,
And trembles like his raptured wing;
But pays the song that cheer'd and bless'd,
With dewdrops, shed beside his nest.

The wild bird bears the foodful seed
To farthest wilds, where birds would feed;
Lo! food springs up where hunger died,
And beauty clothes the desert wide!

Streams trade with clouds, seas trade with heav'n,
Air trades with light, and is forgiv'n;
While man would make all climes his own,
But chain'd by man, laments alone.

Where torrid climes intensely glow,
Lo, trade buys gold with polar snow!
Then let Bordeaux hire Glasgow's loom,
And in our hearts Gaul's vintage bloom!

Thy winds, O God! are free to blow;
Thy streams are free to chime and flow;
Thy clouds are free to roam the sky;
Let man be free his arts to ply!

161

The fiends would chain the winds and sea,
Who famish men and libel Thee;
Lord! give us hope! O banish fear!
“From every face wipe every tear!”

[The present, future, past]

The present, future, past,
What are they, Lord, but Thee?
Thou art, and ever wast,
What hath been and will be.

Thou only seest the sun
To which slow ages tend—
And art the Unbegun,
Which is, and cannot end.

The generations gone,
What are they but a word?
All, all that all have done,
Is but thy whisper, Lord.

The deeds which, in old song,
Like stars of morning shine,
Are accents from thy tongue—
Unwritten words of thine.

162

Before Thee, Homer's name,
Ere Greece was named, went forth;
And, like a word of flame,
Glared Alaric from the North.

Methinks I hear thy voice,
Prophetic, at this hour—
Where evil powers rejoice,
And worship evil power.

A word of fatal tone,
The blind shall hear and see;
A word of fire unblown
On them shall written be.

Lo! things of earth combine,
To curse the blessèd sod!
Bid God his power resign!
And clench their fists at God.

And dreadful art Thou, Lord,
Thy words are dreadful then,
When men make law a sword,
To smite the rights of men!

The dust of patriots dead
Hears then thy stillest tones;
Pale tyrants, waxing red,
Crouch frighted on their thrones;

163

For wrongs go forth in might,
Like whirlwind on the sea;
When vengeance strikes for right,
What is he, Lord, but Thee?

[Wrong not the labouring poor by whom ye live!]

Wrong not the labouring poor by whom ye live!
Wrong not your humble fellow-worms, ye proud!
For God will not the poor man's wrongs forgive,
But hear his plea, and have his plea allowed.

O be not like the vapours, splendour roll'd,
That, sprung from earth's green breast, usurp the sky,
Then spread around contagion black and cold,
Till all who mourn the dead prepare to die!

No! imitate the bounteous clouds, that rise,
Freighted with bliss, from river, vale, and plain;
The thankful clouds, that beautify the skies,
Then fill the lap of earth with fruit and grain.

Yes! emulate the mountain and the flood,
That trade in blessings with the mighty deep;
Till, sooth'd to peace, and satisfied with good,
Man's heart be happy as a child asleep.

164

[Lord! not for vengeance rave the wrong'd]

Lord! not for vengeance rave the wrong'd,
The withering hopes, the woes prolong'd!
Our cause is just, our Judge divine;
But judgment, God of all! is thine.
We call not on thy foes the doom
That scourged the proud of wretched Rome,
Who stole, for few, the lands of all,
To make all life a funeral.
But not in vain thy millions call
On thee, if thou art Lord of all;
And, by thy works, and by thy word,
Hark! millions cry for justice, Lord!

THE UNWRITTEN WORD.

Hast thou not spoken, God,
When wrongs unchain the slave;
And slaves make every sod
A slave's or tyrant's grave?

165

Dost Thou not speak to all,
When names, made bright by thee,
Blaze comet-like, and fall
From heaven to obloquy?

How like a trumpet's blast,
By thee in whirlwind blown,
Thy stern Napoleon past
Through shrieks of states o'erthrown!

What crush'd him, disarray'd,
When perish'd man and steed?
Thy outraged laws of trade!
They crush'd him, like a weed!

A voice of many sighs,
Woe's still small voice of doom,
Whisper'd!—and seas and skies
Sang, “Lo, the Island-Tomb!”

For hosts, of many tongues,
That voice array'd in might;
A universe of wrongs
Arm'd wrongers for the right.

But cursed by battles won,
What learn'd they, triumph-taught?
That victory, self-undone,
Hath lost the fight unfought.

166

Napoleon could not shake
What pigmies have o'erthrown!
O outraged England, wake!
O Nature, claim thy own!

When shall we hear again
Thy still small whisper, God?
O break the bondman's chain!
Uncurse the tax-plough'd sod!

If still thy name is love,
Be Labour's sons thy care!
And from thy earth remove
The vermin all can spare.

Deaf reptiles! they devour
The honey and the tree,
Root, branches, fruit, and flower;
But not our trust in Thee!

EPITAPH.

FOR A MONUMENT TO MAJOR CARTWRIGHT.

Here lies the man, for virtues only known,
Who look'd on Truth's fair face, and saw his own:
Therefore, this humble verse attention craves;
For good men's lives are holier than their graves.

167

EPITAPH.

Greater than Colon, name renown'd
In famed Discovery's rolls,
Here lies Charles Dickens, who first found
That poor folks may have souls.

But Dickens will not thank us for doing him more than justice. Let it not be forgotten that he had in Bulwer a precursor worthy of him; nor let the class whom that precursor has so highly honoured in being one of them, fail to add four words to the question asked by one of his humble characters: “If little Paul should be scragged?” Who is to blame!

EPIGRAM.

[“Prepare to meet the King of Terrors,” cried]

“Prepare to meet the King of Terrors,” cried
To prayerless Want, his plunderer ferret-eyed:
“I am the King of Terrors,” Want replied.

Colonel Thompson.

168

COLONEL THOMPSON IN PALACE YARD.

Who is that small Napoleon-featured pleader?
The sage, whose metaphors are demonstrations;
The bard, whose music yet shall teach all nations
That ignorance is want, war, waste, and treason;
Thompson, the Hadyn and Molière of reason.
Clear-voiced as evening's throstle, o'er the booming
Of conscious forests heard when storms are coming,
He stills these thousands, like a people's leader.

PELHAM.

We spoke of Bulwer. “He was great
In style and thought.” Could he create?
“He could both execute and plan.”
His book was making then a stir,
And a still youth beside us sate.
“What do you think of Bulwer, Sir?”
And, placid-eyed, the youth replied,
“He is a Gentleman.”

169

INSCRIPTION.

Here lies the man who stripp'd Sin bare,
And kept her lean, on hard-earn'd fare;
Who forced the poor at home to stay,
But rode to church on Sabbath-day;
And went to heav'n, the sinless say,
Because he bother'd God with prayer,
And would not let Him have his way.

ANN.

The broken heart, that loves in vain,
Resigns the loved one never,
But, in despair, still hopes to gain
The lost for ever:
Then, greet the shy morn's treacherous glow,
Thou pale autumnal blossom,
Ere chill November's sleet and snow
Beat on thy bosom!

170

So, Ann still loved: it was her doom
To love, in shame and sorrow:
Charles came no more! but “He will come,”
She said, “to-morrow.”
Oh, yet for her, deep bliss remain'd!
She dream'd he came, and kiss'd her!
And, in that hour, the angels gain'd
Another sister.

EPIGRAM.

[Said Death to Pol Sly, “Put no rum in thy tea]

Said Death to Pol Sly, “Put no rum in thy tea,
Or die as thy mother died, aged twenty-three.”
Pol gave him an answer that struck the churl dumb,
“My mother, you know, put no tea in her rum.”

WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL IN DARTFIELD CHURCHYARD.

Man draws his fleeting breath
In doubt and fear,
Though life for ever blooms,
And smiling ev'n on tombs,
Bids beauty say to death,
“What dost thou here?”

171

EPIGRAM.

[The scoundrel's virtues Candid takes on trust]

The scoundrel's virtues Candid takes on trust,
But sifts for good men's faults their very dust.

STEAM IN THE DESERT.

“God made all nations of one blood,”
And bade the nation-wedding flood
Bear good-for-good to men:
Lo, interchange is happiness!
The mindless are the riverless!
The shipless have no pen!

What deed sublime by them is wrought?
What type have they of speech or thought,
What soul-ennobled page?
No record tells their tale of pain!
Th' Unwritten History of Cain
Is theirs, from age to age.

Steam!—if the nations grow not old
That see broad ocean's “back of gold,”
Or hear him in the wind—
Why dost not thou thy banner shake
O'er sealess, streamless lands, and make
One nation of mankind?

172

If rivers are but seeking rest,
Ev'n when they climb from ocean's breast
To plant on earth the rose;
If good for good is doubly bless'd;
Oh, let the sever'd east and west
In action find repose!

Yes, let the wilderness rejoice,
The voiceless champaign hear the voice
Of millions long estranged;
That waste, and want, and war may cease!
And all men know, That Love and Peace
Are—Good for Good Exchanged!

GRACE BEFORE MEAT.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,
By honest, useful efforts won:
Requite us still with good for good!
So let thy will on earth be done.

GRACE AFTER MEAT.

Lord, Thou hast given, oh, ever give
The food by which thy children live!
Blessings to them who blessings earn,
Not ill for ill, wilt Thou return.

173

EPITAPH ON A SKILFUL WORKMAN.

No column's capital lies shatter'd here;
Reader! a column's base demands thy tear.

HE IS NOT HERE.

I found him in his sleep unending,
And could not shed a tear;
I kiss'd his lips, long o'er him bending,
And sobb'd, “He is not here.”

Men bore him to the home of sleepers;
I walk'd behind the bier;
Around him many were the weepers;
I sobb'd, “He is not here.”

I sought the place where he was sleeping,
When none but we were near;
I knelt upon his grave-stone weeping,
And sigh'd, “He is not here.”

174

BEWARE OF DOGMAS.

Two pilgrims, broiling in the sun,
Did once to Glasgow come.
Each had but twopence. James bought rum,
With all his cash; and Charles a bun—
Of his two pennies saving one.
Charles died of fever in a week!
James lives and thrives, is stout and sleek,
And keeps, abjuring rum and gin,
A Temperance inn.

While Temperance is practised by all freetraders, Teetotal is preached by almost every advocate of the monopolists. To the latter, anything but the right thing is the one thing needful. Their legislation prohibits hope; and as a rule, scarcely admitting an exception, it may be said that drunkenness is despair. I never met with a teetotalist who could fathom the profundity of their stock argument, “That strong liquors would not be drunk if nobody drank them;” nor with one who could give a good reason why alcohol should not be sold without license, as other poisons are. Few persons take aquafortis in excess; I am a waterdrinker because I find that alcohol is injurious to me; but I am not an interdicter of alcohol to those whom it blesses; and they are many! Even to me, after much toil, a chrystal of it, melted in a calm cup of rest, is a great blessing.

175

WHO HATH A DEVIL?

Wrongs, in themselves, are feeble weeds,
And yet how fast they grow!
For slaves make tyrants, and the seeds
Of all that tyrants sow.
Weeds, tyrants know, wherever sown,
Will clothe in weeds the sod:
Therefore they say, “Man, mind thy own,
And leave the rest to God.”
But God hath will'd that wretched man
Shall work while it is day,
And help his brethren, if he can,
Along their painful way;
Nor fail to plant, as on he goes
From humble door to door,
Soul-featured Beauty's pink or rose,
To bless and raise the poor.

LET ME REST.

He does well who does his best:
Is he weary? let him rest:
Brothers! I have done my best,
I am weary—let me rest.

176

After toiling oft in vain,
Baffled, yet to struggle fain;
After toiling long, to gain
Little good with mickle pain;
Let me rest—But lay me low,
Where the hedgeside roses blow;
Where the little daisies grow,
When the winds a-maying go;
Where the footpath rustics plod;
Where the breeze-bow'd poplars nod;
Where the old woods worship God;
Where His pencil paints the sod;
Where the wedded throstle sings;
Where the young bird tries his wings;
Where the wailing plover swings
Near the runlet's rushy springs!
Where, at times, the tempest's roar,
Shaking distant sea and shore,
Still will rave old Barnesdale o'er;
To be heard by me no more!
There, beneath the breezy west,
Tired and thankful, let me rest,
Like a child, that sleepeth best
On its gentle mother's breast.

177

BRITISH RURAL COTTAGES IN 1842.

The scentless rose, train'd by the poor,
May sometimes grace the peasant's door;
But when will comfort enter there?
Beauty without, hides death within,
Like flowers upon the shroud of sin:
For ev'n the poor man's marriage-joys,
His wife, his sad-lipp'd girls and boys,
In mercy or in mockery given,
But brighten, with their “hour of heav'n,”
A life of ghastly toil and care:
His pay is pain, his hope despair,
Although the cottage-rose is fair!
Out of his weekly pittance small,
Three crowns, for children, wife, and all,
Poor British Slave! how can he save
A pittance for his evening's close?
No roses deck the workhouse-grave!
Where is the aged pauper's rose!

EPIGRAM.

[I know, thy vileness is thy might]

I know, thy vileness is thy might,
And that thou 'rt in thy weakness strong;
I do not ask thee to do right;
But, paltry creature, do no wrong.

178

YOUNG ENGLAND.

I met a sage who had been dead
A hundred years and more;
And still he said what he had said
A hundred years before:
Then, met I one (a rogue's sly son,)
Who printed what the other said,
And praised it, ev'n with tears:
Alas! he also had been dead
A hundred years.

EPIGRAM.

[In speech and print, in prose and song]

In speech and print, in prose and song,
Still aiding Starveall's right to wrong,
How oft the people's knaves have shown,
“That mine is his, and his his own!”

See lines by C. R. Pemberton. Poor Charles!

179

POOR CHARLES.

Shunn'd by the rich, the vain, the dull,
Truth's all-forgiving son,
The gentlest of the beautiful,
His painful course hath run;
Content to live, to die resign'd,
In meekness proud of wishes kind,
And duties nobly done.

A godlike child hath left the earth;
In heav'n a child is born:
Cold World! thou could'st not know his worth,
And well he earn'd thy scorn;
For he believed that all may be
What martyrs are, in spite of thee,
Nor wear thy crown of thorn.

Smiling, he bound it round his brain,
And dared what martyrs dare;
For God, who wastes nor joy nor pain,
Had arm'd his soul to bear;
But vain his hope to find below
That peace which heav'n alone can know;
He died—to seek it there.

180

ON A ROSE IN DECEMBER.

Stay yet, pale flower, though coming storms will tear thee,
My soul grows darker, and I cannot spare thee.

WAR.

The victories of mind,
Are won for all mankind;
But war wastes what it wins,
Ends worse than it begins,
And is a game of woes,
Which nations always lose:
Though tyrant tyrant kill,
The slayer liveth still.

SONNET ON A PAIR OF SPECTACLES.

How many men, who liv'd to bless mankind,
Have died unthank'd! Far-teaching and self-taught,
They did what learning scorns to learn or teach;
Their deeds are portion of the general thought;
Their thoughts have pass'd into the common speech,
And labour's wages; yet they left behind

181

Nor name, nor record! save the good which grew
Out of the sacrifice that gives and saves.
Lo, what a tree is rising from their graves,
To shelter, ev'n on earth, the wise and true!
Then, worship not famed words, which, like the winds,
Or Homer's song, seem things that cannot die,
And ever lived: they are but names of minds
Whose good or evil speaks immortally.

TO FANNY ANN.

As the flower bloweth,
As the stream floweth,
Daughter of beauty,
Do thou thy duty.
What, though the morrow
May dawn in sorrow?
Ev'n as light hasteth,
Darkness, too, wasteth:
Morn then discloses,
Raindrops on roses!
Daughter of beauty,
What, then, is duty?
Time says, “Death knoweth!”
Death says, “Time showeth!”

182

LAW.

Lawgiver, if thy aim is good,
Make thy laws known, and understood.

I know a young lady who, when four years of age, could not learn her letters. Often chided, and at last severely, she burst into tears. Her mother wept too, and without suspecting the cause of the evil, wrote an alphabet in large letters, which the child mastered in a week. But when she returned to school, she still could not learn. It was then discovered that she was born short-sighted; and it is affecting now to hear her say, that whenever she had been chided, she believed she was in fault. How many victims of our conservators of ignorance have gone to the scaffold with a similar perplexing conviction on their minds, and hearing, even in death, the death-chaplain (ignorantly, but not therefore innocently,) advocate the murderous cause!

MONODY ON JOHN KEATS.

He lived and loved! He was a power
That left its thought more felt than spoken:
“A fading flower! a falling shower!
A breaking wave!” which now is broken.

Can greatness die, and be unborn?
It cannot, thou in scorn repliest:
He perish'd in his “scorn of scorn,”
And lowest deem'd, of all was highest.

183

A vapour quench'd his visions grand:
Ah, hope destroy'd is worth's undoing!
He left the deathless deed he plann'd
A deed undone—And what a ruin!

See Shelley's Adonais.

Hyperion, A Fragment.

TO A LADY,

WHO COMPLAINED THAT SHE COULD NOT DECYPHER MY SIGNATURE, AND THAT I HAD ADDRESSED HER AS A “CEMENT MANUFACTURER,” WHEREAS SHE WAS MOVING IN THE FIRST CIRCLES OF SOCIETY.

I'm sorry that my ill-scrawl'd name
Defeated my intent;
And that I styled so grand a dame,
“A maker of cement.”
Forgive me, Madam! I confess,
A grievous fault was mine:
I own'd your claim to usefulness,
But knew not you were fine.

184

TO WED, OR NOT TO WED.

THOMAS.
I'm tired of single life;
I'll live alone no more;
I'll wed a loved and loving wife;
My sire did so before:
How brightly, then, my fire will blaze!
How sweetly Ann will sing!
We shall be merry all our days,
As skylarks on the wing.

WILLIAM.
Bless'd is the mated bird;
And where she, brooding, cowers,
Melodies of the heart are heard,
Amid the hawthorn-flowers.
Though richest wines, their sweetness fled,
Grow dull, and acrid too;
I say not, “Thomas, do not wed!”
For God says, “Thomas, do!”

185

NOT FOR NOUGHT.

Do and suffer nought in vain:
Let no trifle trifling be:
If the salt of life is pain,
Let ev'n wrongs bring good to thee;
Good to others, few or many;
Good to all, or good to any.

If men curse thee, plant their lies
Where, for truth, they best may grow;
Let the railers make thee wise,
Preaching peace, where'er thou go:
God no useless plant hath planted,
Evil (wisely used) is wanted.

If the nation-feeding corn
Thriveth under icèd snow;
If the small bird, on the thorn,
Useth well its guarded sloe;
Bid thy cares thy comforts double;
Gather fruit from thorns of trouble.

See the Rivers! how they run
Strong in gloom, and strong in light!
Like the never-wearied sun,
Through the day, and through the night,
Each along his path of duty,
Turning coldness into beauty!

186

THOMAS HOBBES IN 1651.

The labour that but stirs the earth
Imparts to worthless matter worth.

ADAM SMITH 1766.

Wealth is not only coin or gold,
But beef, cloth, brandy, rye;
And all that can be bought or sold
Is property.

TURGOT IN 1774.

The right to buy is the right to sell,
And the right to get and save:
Free commerce is a consequence
Of the right to earn and have.

187

SONG.

[They say I'm old, because I'm grey]

They say I'm old, because I'm grey,
The agèd bard, they now call me!
But grey or green, I boldly say,
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

Though sixty years and ten may doom
Tired men to rest with worms and me;
With sixty gone, and ten to come,
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

My eyes flash flame, my heart is glad,
When poor men shake their sides with glee;
And though they cry, “Come on, Old Lad!”
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

While soars the skylark high and higher,
And bids the mountains wake, to see,
How morn can fill my veins with fire,
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

Thou brightening cloud, that sail'st afar
Where screams the falcon, wheeling free!
Tell yonder fading, winking star,
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

188

OH, TELL US!

Companion'd each by all and none,
A mob of souls, yet each alone,
We journey to the dread Unknown.

In nothing found, in all things shown,
In all life living, yet alone,
Where may it be, that dread Unknown?

Oh, who, or what, so dreadly shown,
And world-attended, yet alone,
Is that all-sought, all-known Unknown?

RELIGION.

What is Religion? “Speak the truth in love.”
Reject no good. Mend, if thou canst, thy lot.
Doubting, enquire,—nor dictate till thou prove.
Enjoy thy own—exceed not, trespass not.
Pity the scorners of life's meanest thing.
If wrong'd, forgive—that Hate may lose his sting.
Think, speak, work, get—bestow, or wisely keep.
So live, that thou may'st smile, and no one weep.

189

Be bless'd—like birds, that sing because they love;
And bless—like rivers, singing to the sun,
Giving and taking blessings, as they run;
Or soft-voiced showers, that cool the answering grove,
When cloudy wings are wide in heav'n display'd,
And blessings brighten o'er the freshen'd sod,
Till earth is like the countenance of God.
This is Religion! saith the bard of trade.

SONNET.

[In these days, every mother's son or daughter]

In these days, every mother's son or daughter
Writes verse, which no one reads except the writer,
Although, unink'd, the paper would be whiter,
And worth, per ream, a hare, when you have caught her.
Hundreds of unstaunch'd Shelleys daily water
Unanswering dust; a thousand Wordsworths scribble;
And twice a thousand Cornlaw Rhymers dribble
Rhymed prose, unread. Hymners of fraud and slaughter,
By cant call'd other names, alone find buyers—
Who buy, but read not. “What a loss in paper,”
Groans each immortal of the host of sighers!
“What profanation of the midnight taper
In expirations vile! But I write well,
And wisely print. Why don't my poems sell?”

190

EPIGRAM.

[Free Trade means work for beef, not bone]

Free Trade means work for beef, not bone;
It means that men are brothers;
That every man should have his own,
And nobody another's.

SONNET.

[John. In the sound of that rebellious word]

John. In the sound of that rebellious word
There is brave music. Jack, and Jacobin,
Are vulgar terms; law-link'd to shame and sin,
They have a twang of Jack the Hangman's cord:
Yet John hath merit which can well afford
To be call'd Jack's. By life's strange offs and ons!
Glory hath had great dealings with the Johns,
Since history first awaked where fable snored.
John Cade, John Huss, John Hampden, and John Knox!
Ay, these were names of fellows who had will.
John Wilson's name, far sounded, sounds not ill;
But how unlike John Milton's, or John Locke's!
John Bright, like Locke and Milton, scorns paid sloth;
And Johnson might have liked to gibbet both.

191

SONNET.

[Some famous authors trade in mental sleep]

Some famous authors trade in mental sleep,
Lulling grown babies with a printed beebee:
Profound the learn'd them call, the vulgar deep:
Though o'er their pages none can laugh or weep,
And dull as coffin'd dust may he or she be,
Their dear no-meaning sells, and that's enough:
If I don't understand Sir Riddles' stuff,
Sir Riddles does—how clever, then, must he be!
At shrines whose mysteries have gods of wood,
The age-long pilgrimage brings crowds to pray;
But in a month, a fortnight, or a day,
Dead drops th' immortal who is understood!
Clear as the crystal pane that fronts the north,
His worth is seen through, therefore nothing worth.

TAKE v. GIVE.

Said Play to Work, “Our tax on food
Is useful, though I say it.”
“To you it may be,” Work replied,
“Or why force me to pay it?”

192

SONNET.

[From cloud-swept Snowgate, Dearne! now swift, now slow]

From cloud-swept Snowgate, Dearne! now swift, now slow,
Thou comest, playing still a busy tune;
And while rich woodbines braid the locks of June,
And wild hedge-roses in her bosom glow,
That tune is sweet. On, sky-fed Wanderer, go!
Waste not at monkish Burton this bright hour;
Pass Darfield's meads, and many a blossom'd bower;
Bid Wath good night! and sleep at Conisbro',
In Don's cold arms. Here, scarcely heard to lisp,
Thy waters bask in evening's purply gold,
And round thy lilies — fresh, blush-tinged, and crisp—
Linger, as loth to leave this loveliest scene—
Bard of the Rustic Wreath! my tale is told;
I stand again, where thou hast often been.

193

ON THE CORONATION OF VICTORIA THE FIRST.

WRITTEN FOR THE PRINTERS OF SHEFFIELD.

What! here again, Old Caxton?
Thou'rt welcome, as before:
Calm emblem of long-slumbering strength,
That, like a giant, waked, at length,
To sleep no more!

Evil lives long, Old Caxton!
Long, too, live sky and sea;
And Truth's worst foes as well might try
To tame and fetter sea and sky,
As conquer thee.

Yet since we last beheld thee,
Five years of shame have past;
And still the toil-worn millions groan,
And traitors still call ours their own,
And grasp it fast.

This is not well, Old Caxton!
Yet still in truth we trust;
If rocks are worn by sea and sky,
The Press may Freedom's foes defy;
They are but dust.

194

Thou noblest apparition
That mortal eye hath seen,
Since Power went down to Death's dark shore!
Could fitter symbol stand before
A British Queen?

FAREWELL TO RIVILIN.

WRITTEN FOR MUSIC, AT THE REQUEST OF A. WOOD, ESQ.

Beautiful River! goldenly shining,
Where with the cistus woodbines are twining;
(Birklands around thee, mountains above thee,)
Rivilin wildest! do I not love thee?

Why do I love thee, Heart-breaking River?
Love thee, and leave thee? Leave thee for ever!
Never to see thee, where the storms greet thee!
Never to hear thee, rushing to meet me!

Never to hail thee, joyfully chiming
Beauty in music, Sister of Wiming!
Playfully mingling laughter and sadness,
Ribbledin's Sister! sad in thy gladness.

Why must I leave thee, mournfully sighing
Man is a shadow? River undying!
Dream-like he passeth, cloud-like he wasteth,
E'en as a shadow over thee hasteth.

195

Oh, when thy poet, weary, reposes,
Coffin'd in slander, far from thy roses,
Tell all thy pilgrims, Heart-breaking River!
Tell them I loved thee—love thee for ever!

Yes, for the spirit blooms ever vernal;
River of Beauty! love is eternal:
While the rock reeleth, storm-struck and riven,
Safe is the fountain flowing from heav'n.

There wilt thou hail me, joyfully chiming
Beauty in music, Sister of Wiming!
Homed with the angels, hasten to greet me,
Glad as the heathflower, glowing to meet thee.

THE DEAD ARE LIVING.

Ask not the unreplying tomb,
“Where are the dead?”
But ask the hawthorn-bloom,
Returning still
To vale and hill;
The verdure, spread
Wide as the seas;
The flowers, the trees,
The river's song;

196

The gain that laughs, the loss that weeps
The strong deed of the strong,
That ever works, and never sleeps.
Or ask the ever-taking, ever-giving,
Deep ocean, and blue sky;
And they will tell thee, that the dead are living,
And cannot die.

A COWARD'S BLOW.

The strong man smote his wife;
No help for her was nigh;
No strength had she, to fight for life:
She died, and he must die!

Sad is it to be weak,
And sadder to be wrong;
But if the strong God's statutes break,
'Tis saddest to be strong.

197

IVY.

“Let me forget,” the sufferer prays,
“Past failings, faults, and sorrows!
There is no use in Yesterdays
That do not bless To-morrows;
Who would not faint on life's dread waste,
And sicken at man's doings,
If the slow ivy made not haste
To cover the soul's ruins?”

EPITAPH,

ON AN ACTIVE TRADESMAN.

This headless column on a stone—
What may this mournful shaft betoken?
Pale orphans answer, with their moan,
“The key-stone of an arch is gone!
A mother's heart is broken.”

198

EPIGRAM.

[Companionship in toil or sorrow]

Companionship in toil or sorrow
Makes every man a brother:
Till we have work'd or wept together
We do not know each other.

WRITTEN AFTER READING GOETHE'S FAUST.

Clothe truth in light, and men shall deem thee mad;
But give to thought a dream's profundities,
And learning's self, for worth they never had,
Shall praise thy pages, and pronounce thee wise:
Old readers still shall find thee new to them,
As o'er thy lines for hidden wealth they pore,
To prop the Ancient House of Fallacies:
At each old nothing wondering more and more;
Shouting, “Eureka,” as they turn it o'er;
Shall each discoverer laud his special gem!
For deep and safe the buried meaning lies
That never lived, and therefore never dies.

199

EPITAPH.

Reader! since God expects thee, too,
Be, like our brother, kind and true;
Then, will three words thy worth express,
Honesty, Love, and Usefulness.

WOMAN.

What highest prize hath woman won
In science, or in art?
What mightiest work, by woman done,
Boasts city, field, or mart?
“She hath no Raphael!” Painting saith;
“No Newton!” Learning cries;
“Show us her Steam-ship! her Macbeth!
Her thought-won victories.”

Wait, boastful Man! Though worthy are
Thy deeds, when thou art true,
Things worthier still, and holier far,
Our sister yet will do;

200

For this the worth of woman shows,
On every peopled shore,
That still as man in wisdom grows,
He honours her the more.

Oh, not for wealth, or fame, or power,
Hath man's meek angel striven,
But, silent as the growing flower,
To make of earth a heav'n!
And in her garden of the sun
Heaven's brightest rose shall bloom;
For woman's best is unbegun!
Her advent yet to come!

Educated woman, through her self-denying, self-aggrandising refusal to marry, without first securing a certain standard of comfort, is destined to save mankind, and in the language of St. Paul, “Lift us up!”

LENT AND LOST.

Of Mary, by heav'n lent,
Heav'n has bereft us;
And from her home all comfort went,
When Mary left us.

201

We fear no ills, no foes,
Though they surround us;
Pass on, thou cloud of many woes!
The worst has found us.

If lowest cannot fall,
Need we be wary?
We lost fear, joy, hope, danger, all,
When we lost Mary.

In vain, vex'd Sea of Change,
Thou thy rocks chafest!
Secure, thy dreaded verge we range:
Saddest is safest.

LAND.

He ties up hands
Who locks up lands:
The lands which can't be sold and bought
Bring men and states to worse than nought:
The lands which can be freely sold
Are worth a world of barren gold.

Land, in Britain, is withdrawn from competition by the law of primogeniture, and in France by that of equal division among all the children of a marriage, to the great danger of both countries.

202

EPIGRAM.

[What is a communist? One who hath yearnings]

What is a communist? One who hath yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings:
Idler, or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his penny, and pocket your shilling.

And he has two names, Legion and Danger.

THE PEOPLE'S ANTHEM.

WRITTEN FOR MUSIC, AT THE REQUEST OF W. T. WOOD, ESQ.

When wilt thou save the people?
Oh, God of mercy! when?
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of thy heart, oh, God, are they!
Let them not pass, like weeds, away!
Their heritage a sunless day!
God, save the people!

Shall crime bring crime for ever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, oh, Father,
That man shall toil for wrong?

203

“No!” say thy mountains; “No!” thy skies:
“Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
And songs be heard, instead of sighs.”
God, save the people!

When wilt thou save the people?
Oh, God of Mercy! when?
The people, Lord, the people!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God! save the people! thine they are,
Thy children, as thy angels fair:
Save them from bondage, and despair!
God! save the people!

And who are the people? They are all those persons who, by honestly maintaining themselves, and, perhaps earning a surplus,— or by honestly living on the precious earnings and savings of others —prove their right to govern the community through their representatives. I deny that any human being is born possessed of a right to vote for members of parliament. All men, and all women, are born possessed of the right to acquire the power of doing so; just as all boys are born possessed of the right to acquire the power of using edgetools. But no boy is born possessed of a right to cut even his own fingers; and before any person meddle with mine I would have him understand the nature of edgetools. The right to vote for members of parliament is founded on property and knowledge, that property and knowledge which every self-sustained person possesses, in the labour, or skill, which enables him, or her, to live; and taxation and representation ought to be co-extensive, because Taxes are paid by self-sustained persons alone.

204

LOVE STRONG IN DEATH.

We watch'd him, while the moonlight,
Beneath the shadow'd hill,
Seem'd dreaming of good angels,
And all the woods were still.
The brother of two sisters
Drew painfully his breath:
A strange fear had come o'er him,
For love was strong in death.
The fire of fatal fever
Burn'd darkly on his cheek,
And often to his mother
He spoke, or tried to speak:
“I felt, as if from slumber
I never could awake:
Oh, Mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!
A cold, dead weight is on me,
A heavy weight, like lead:
My hands and feet seem sinking
Quite through my little bed:
I am so tired, so weary—
With weariness I ache:
Oh, Mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!

205

Some little token give me,
Which I may kiss in sleep—
To make me feel I'm near you,
And bless you, though I weep.
My sisters say I'm better—
But, then, their heads they shake:
Oh, Mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!
Why can't I see the poplar,
The moonlit stream and hill,
Where, Fanny says, good angels
Dream, when the woods are still?
Why can't I see you, Mother?
I surely am awake:
Oh, haste! and give me something
To cherish for your sake!”
His little bosom heaves not;
The fire hath left his cheek:
The fine chord—is it broken?
The strong chord—could it break?
Ah, yes! the loving spirit
Hath wing'd his flight away:
A mother and two sisters
Look down on lifeless clay.

206

TO THOMAS LISTER.

Friend, I return your English Hexameters, thanking you for them.
More than forty years since, I constructed such verses,
Choosing a lofty theme, too often worded unsimply.
Even now, I remember one stol'n line of the anthem:
“Thou for ever and ever, God, Omnipotent, reignest!”
Though my verbiage pleased me, long ago did it journey
Whither dead things tend. For Homer's world-famous metre
Cannot in English be pleasing. Saxon may write it in Saxon,
Oft for dactyl and spondee using iambic and trochee,
Pleased—and making a boast of his wasted labour and lost time;
But with grace and simplicity none can write it in our tongue,
Though the sturdy gothic oft runs into it promptly,
As it grandly does in these fine lines from the Bible:
“How art thou fall'n from heav'n, oh, Lucifer, son of the Morn!” and

207

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?”
Not unpleasing always, mostly 'tis feeble, yet stilted,
Wanting, in wanting ease, the might which is mightiest, beauty.
Yet can it finely paint the beauty of form and of colour;
Skies, and the sea; or mountains cloud-like in distance, and stealing
Azure from heav'n; or the daisy fresh in the dewgleam of dawn; or
Young June's blush-tinted hawthorn, that scatters the snow of its dropp'd flowers
Over the faded cowslip, and roses embraced by the woodbine,
Under the mute, or songful, or thunder-whispering forest;
But from man's heart seldom it brings the tear, which the angels,
Knowing not sorrow, might almost in their blessedness envy.
Slow or rapid, sweet or solemn, in Greek and in Latin,
It is in English undignified, loose, and worse than the worst prose.
One advantage it has—it must be utter'd as prose is;
And as it may be wanted, if only as changes are wanted,
I subjoin the rule for its fitting or modern construction:

208

Every line must consist of six feet, dactyls and spondees,
Dactyls and trochees, or dactyls and both: A dactyl the fifth foot
Must be; a spondee or trochee the sixth: Each line must contain not
More than sixteen syllables, and not fewer than thirteen.

BULLY IDLE'S PRAYER.

Lord, send us weeks of Sundays,
A saint's day every day,
Shirts gratis, ditto breeches,
No work, and double pay!
Tell Short and Long they're both short now;
To Slow and Fast one meed allow;
Let Louis Blanc take Ashley's cow,
And Richmond give him hay!

Twenty-four years ago our Protectionists had notice given them, by me, that they would have imitators; and they must not be allowed to forget, that out of their cornlaws sprung the Trade's Union which is now (March 1848) the French government!

209

HYMN.

[Still for rest on Sabbath day]

Still for rest on Sabbath day,
Air and light on “Labour's day,”
Let us toil—if toil we may;
Toil till death, if toil we may,
Toil till death for pauper's pay,
And our blessèd Sabbath day.

WILL IT RAIN?

“Bread!” the starver faintly sigheth;
“I have none!” the robb'd replieth;
Doall loseth, Starveall winneth;
Cheatall laugheth, while he sinneth;
Work grim-gaspeth o'er spare diet;
And the Million-Tongued is quiet.

When the forest breatheth deeply,
Darkèd sun down shining steeply;
When the noon-night scarcely shifteth;
And the windy cloud uplifteth
Not a leaf the mute heav'ns under;
Then, the thoughtful look for thunder!

210

GOOD MEN'S GRAVES.

Lone, they rest. Nor Snap, nor Snivel,
Robs, or pities virtue's dust!
Marble insults, Cant and Drivel
Build not o'er the just.
Them, in thought, the honest only
Visit, while they toil as slaves:
Oh, 'Tis true! the stars shine lonely
Over good men's graves.
All in silence, not in sorrow,
Read they on the wordless sod,
“These men's deeds will speak, to-morrow;
They are words of God;
Heard in heav'n, with tears of gladness;
Mute on earth! yet working there;
Bringing chains for rapine's madness,
Wings for chain'd despair.”

211

YOUNG POET'S PLAINT.

God, release our dying sister!
Beauteous blight hath sadly kiss'd her:
Whiter than the wild, white roses,
Famine in her face discloses
Mute submission, patience holy,
Passing fair! but passing slowly.
Though she said, “You know I'm dying,”
In her heart green trees are sighing;
Not of them hath pain bereft her,
In the city, where we left her:
“Bring,” she said, “a hedgeside blossom!”
Love shall lay it on her bosom.

ARTISAN'S OUTDOOR HYMN.

Again, oh, Lord, we humbly pray
That Thou wilt guide our steps aright:
Bless here, this day, tired Labour's day!
Oh, fill our souls with love and light!

212

For failing food, six days in seven,
We till the black town's dust and gloom:
But here we drink the breath of heav'n,
And here to pray the poor have room.
The stately temple, built with hands,
Throws wide its doors to pomp and pride;
But in the porch their beadle stands,
And thrusts the child of toil aside.
Therefore we seek the daisied plain,
Or climb thy hills, to touch thy feet;
Here, far from splendour's city-fane,
Thy weary sons and daughters meet.
Is it a crime to tell Thee here,
That here the sorely-tried are met?
To seek thy face, and find Thee near?
And on thy rock our feet to set?
Where, wheeling wide, the plover flies;
Where sings the woodlark on the tree;
Beneath the music of thy skies,
Is it a crime to worship Thee?
“We waited long, and sought Thee, Lord,”
Content to toil, but not to pine;
And with the weapons of thy Word
Alone, assail'd our foes and thine.
Thy truth and Thee, we bade them fear;
They spurn thy truth, and mock our moan!
“Thy counsels, Lord, they will not hear,
And Thou hast left them to their own.”

213

THE POOR MAN'S DAY.

Grahame.

Sabbath holy!
To the lowly
Still art thou a welcome day.
When thou comest, earth and ocean,
Shade and brightness, rest and motion,
Help the poor man's heart to pray.

Sun-waked forest!
Bird, that soarest
O'er the mute, empurpled moor!
Throstle's song, that stream-like flowest!
Wind, that over dewdrop goest!
Welcome now the woe-worn poor.

Little river,
Young for ever!
Cloud, gold-bright with thankful glee!
Happy woodbine, gladly weeping!
Gnat, within the wild rose keeping!
Oh, that they were bless'd as ye!

214

Sabbath holy!
For the lowly
Paint with flowers thy glittering sod;
For affliction's sons and daughters,
Bid thy mountains, woods, and waters,
Pray to God, the poor man's God!

From the fever,
(Idle never
Where on Hope Want bars the door,)
From the gloom of airless alleys,
Lead thou to green hills and valleys
Weary Lordland's trampled poor!

Pale young mother!
Gasping brother!
Sister, toiling in despair!
Grief-bow'd sire, that life-long diest!
White-lipp'd child, that sleeping sighest!
Come, and drink the light and air.

Still God liveth;
Still he giveth
What no law can take away;
And, oh, Sabbath! bringing gladness
Unto hearts of weary sadness,
Still art thou “The Poor Man's Day!”

215

HYMN.

[To live in vain! to live in pain!]

To live in vain! to live in pain!
To toil in hopeless sadness!
Is this the doom of godlike man,
Oh, God of Love and Gladness?
Not so the rose in summer blows,
Not so the moon her changes knows,
Not so the storm his madness.

From storms that rock the oak to sleep,
Thy woods their beauty borrow;
And flowers, to-day, unheeded weep,
Whose seeds will live to-morrow:
So man, by painful ages taught,
Will build, at last, on truthful thought,
And wisdom, won from sorrow.

Else, what a lie were written wide,
By thy right hand, my Father,
O'er all thy seas, in crimson dyed
When Morning is a bather;
O'er all thy vales of growing gold;
Or where, on mountains black with cold,
Thy clouds to battle gather.

216

PRAYER.

Bless'd be thy name, Eternal One!
Thy kingdom come! thy will be done!
Give us, this day, our daily food;
Requite us, Lord, with good for good!
Aid us temptation to repel;
And from all evil guard us well:
For thine the kingdom still will be,
All glory, and all sov'reignty.

THE IMITATED LANE.

Now, Landscape-Maker, that with living trees
Createst Painting! thou should'st hither come,
And here learn how the town-sick heart to please.
Can'st thou not, in thy tiny wild, find room
For a wild lane, that with capricious ease
Shading or brightening self-taught branch or flower,
Will saunter gently to a seated bower?
Or lead thee through a cloudlet of green gloom,
Cheer'd by the music of its hidden rills,

217

To sudden sunburst? where the hunter's cot
Looks down on rivers, and the distant hills
Climb to the firmament, yet marry not
Their purple to the orange-blaze, that fills
O'er-arching heav'n with pomp,
And peace, and power!

ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF VICTORIA THE FIRST.

Queen of our Hearts! true marriage
Is made of solid bread;
Not so, that Many-Childed Plague
Which curseth board and bed:
The ghastly league of woe with crime,
To which starved men are driven,
Though marriage call'd by law-made saints,
Hath other names in heav'n.

Lady! may all the blessings
Which thou would'st give to all
Who call thee queen, or God their lord,
On thee, thrice blessèd, fall!

218

If 'tis thy wish that every pair
Should live in love for ever,
May God return thee good for good,
And love desert thee never!

But want and crime, Victoria,
Law-wedded in this land,
Are curses, million-multiplied,
That frown on every hand;
And thou wilt wake, with him thou lov'st,
From brief and troubled slumbers,
If law of thine deal lessening loaves
To famine's doubling numbers.

Beautiful as the cistus,
That o'er the stonechat's nest
Stoops, when the moorland clouds lie down
On evening's lap to rest,
Art thou, my Queen! the morning dews
Upon the orchard blossom,
Are not more pure than is the heart
Within thy royal bosom.

But can the Queen be happy,
If millions round her weep?
In love's elysium, while hope faints,
Can Hope's Victoria sleep?

219

No. Bringer of Redemption! thou,
In love's elysium sleeping,
Would'st wake, to grieve with starving men,
And worth in dungeons weeping.

The woodbine's cluster'd beauty,
That hides the brooding thrush,
And weds the wild hedgerose, when Morn
Shakes pearls from tree and bush,
All trembling like the skylark's wing,
Would dread his voice of gladness,
And hate the marriages of Spring,
If dower'd with hate and sadness.

220

THE SUN'S BIRD.

The cloud of the rain is beneath thee. Thou singest,
Palaced in glory; but Morn hath begun
A dark day for man, while the sunbeams thou wingest,
Bird of the Sun! Bird of the Sun!

They hear thee, but see thee not—sleepy bees hear thee,
While under sad boughs the sad rivulets run;
But thou art all music! care cannot get near thee,
Bird of the Sun! Bird of the Sun!

And when from Light's fields thou descendest, and over
Thy nest the wide gloom spreads its canopy dun,
How sweet will thy sleep be among the sweet clover,
Bird of the Sun! Bird of the Sun!

And, there, a white network of dewdrops the fairies,
To chain leaf and flower, in a frolic have spun;
While nigh thy dear home the tipp'd ear of the hare is,
Bird of the Sun! Bird of the Sun!

221

SCOTSMEN TO SCOTLAND,

WRITTEN FOR THE SCOTSMEN OF SHEFFIELD.

Thy Men of Men shall we forget,
Old Scotland? No. Where'er we be,
All lonely, or in exile met,
We think of them and thee.
Mother of Knox! “hast thou a charm”
That gives to all thy name who bear
Thoughts which unnerve the despot's arm,
And Will, to do and dare?
Thou bad'st him build on tyrant's bones
An altar to the Lord of Lords;
Thou gav'st him power to shatter thrones,
And vanquish kings, with words.
Stern Mother of the deathless dead!
Where stands a Scot, a freeman stands,
Self-stay'd, if poor—self-clothed, self-fed,
Mind-mighty, in all lands.
No mitred pleader need thy sons,
To save the wretch whom Mercy spurns;
No classic lore thy little ones,
Who find a Bard in Burns.
Their path, though dark, they will not miss;
Secure, they tread on danger's brink;
They say, “This shall be!” and it is;
For, ere they act, they think.

222

Mother of Burns! thy woe-nursed bard
Not always wisely thought or said;
He err'd, he sinn'd—but, oh, 'tis hard
To ban the voiceless dead!
Mother! thy doric speech hath power
The heart with passion's thrill to move;
But none could sing, in hall or bower,
Like him, thy Bard of Love.
Who dipp'd his words in lightning? Who
With thunder arm'd his stormy rhyme?
Who made his music tender, true,
Terse, terrible, sublime?
Who bade thy bard, in thrall, maintain
A freeman's port, where'er he trod?
Who taught the peasant to disdain
Proud Fashion's Minstrels? God.
Who gave the child of toil a lyre,
With living sunbeams wildly strung?
And taught his soul of living fire
Truth's universal tongue?
God. But with torture Faction fill'd
The cup he drain'd in gloomy pride:
What marvel, if the poison kill'd?
What marvel, if he died?
Few were his days, his fortunes foul;
Bravely he struggled, though not long;

223

And with a poet's glowing soul,
Drew near to God in song.
For Conscience to thy poet said,
“Burns! be a martyr!” “For the truth,
I will,” he cried—and bow'd his head,
And died, grey-hair'd in youth.
With little men he might not stay,
But hasted from a world unkind:
Oh, guess the worth he threw away,
By what he left behind!
And what a wreath his fame had worn,
Amid a world's immortal tears,
Had he, like England's Milton, borne
The fruit of sixty years!
But shall it of our sires be told
That they their “brother poor” forsook?
No! for they gave him more than gold;
They bought the brave man's Book!
Scotland! thy sons—and not unearn'd
This day of pleasing tears returns—
Are met to mourn thy trampled, spurn'd,
Poor, broken-hearted Burns.
And oft again, the kind, the brave,
Who sorrow's feast, like him, have shared,
Will meet, to honour in his grave
Thy glorious rustic bard.
Oh, spare his frailties!—write them not
On mute Misfortune's coffin-lid!—

224

Ev'n Bacon err'd, and greater Scott
Not always greatly did.
A fearful gift is flame from heav'n,
To him who bears it in his breast:
Self-fired, and blasted, but forgiv'n,
Let Robert's ashes rest.

See Coleridge's Hymn to Sunrise.

ERIN, A DIRGE, FOR APRIL, 1847.

Oh, for snow, strange April snow,
Cold and cheap! a shroud of woe
For pale dead Erin's nakedness!
Snow-clad Broom, oh, drooping broom,
Hearse of snow, of plumes a plume,
Weep over Erin coffinless!

There are colder things than snow,
Sadder things than death and woe,
Proud Rapine's cold hard-heartedness!
And that saddest, helpless pain
Which, when struck, strikes not again!
Now wordless, lifeless, coffinless.

Insect, that would'st God enthrall!
Earning nought and taking all!

225

Art thou thy country's nothingness?
Man! whom that vile insect's will
Yet may torture, starve, and kill!
Remember Erin coffinless.

How men treat subjected man,
When they may do what they can,
Well knows scourged India's wofulness;
Well, Bengal, thy famish'd dead
(Victim-myriads o'er thee spread!)
Forespoke of Erin coffinless.

Oh, thou snow-clad forest-bough!
In thy sun-lit glory now,
Laugh not at death's wide wastefulness;
But lament, while brightly glows
April's noon o'er Winter snows,
A nation dead and coffinless!

And—oh! pale unshrouded one,
Cover'd by the heav'ns alone!
A white sheet now shall cover thee:
Help is vain, but help is nigh;
And thy friend, the pitying sky
Shall throw a cold sheet over thee.