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 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 How dismal was thy airy hall, Thy throne for hearthless kings! Than thy red-rule of forest law, Yes he whom scorn and hunger ban, In vain thou mak'st the air a slave 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; O Genius! all too long, too oft, At thee the souls of clay have scoff'd, Sold them to Misery's dungeon gloom; To beggary's brawl-fill'd lodging-room, Then to the death-den's workhouse floor, But, lo! the train !—On! onward !—still And thoughts on vapoury wings are hurl'd, Mountains, that were when graves were not! 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! * The remains of a fortification at the Ickles, near Rotherham. Eternal River!—roaring now, As erst, in earlier years, Ere grief began, with youthful brow, Thou hear'st, beneath this brightening sky, While man hath hopes and fears. He, (conquering fire, and time, and space,) Earth's ocean-sever'd strands; And, on his iron road, will bear HYMN. ANOTHER wave is swallow'd by the sea Another year, thou past Eternity, Hath roll'd o'er new-made graves! They open yet to bid the living weep, While I, unswept into the ruthless deep, Why am I spared? Surely to wear away, Vile traces, left beneath th' upbraiding spray, If there are deeds, which no repentance need, 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. Deeds which are harvest for Eternity! TRAFALGAR. ABOVE the howl of ocean And frowning Trafalgar, From bursting cloud, went forth the voice Of elemental war; |