The song of Homer liveth ; O'er realms of suns is spread! If Milton's lay could pass from earth, 157 But Babylon and Memphis Are letters traced in dust : Read them, earth's tyrants !-ponder well The might in which ye trust! They fell, because on fraud and force Truth, Mercy, Knowledge, Justice, They work with God's right hand; But Memphian Kings found ignorance Their true and last adviser! Then, Trader, Lord, or Yeoman, If thou a patriot art— If thou would'st weep to see the light Her streets blood-flooded, and her plains And save a sinking nation! Shall we not lift the lowly, Whom law and custom ban? O help us to exalt and praise And in his parent, worn with want, Friends of the chain'd in spirit! Set free our soul-bound slaves ! Still gathering strength to save and bless- Ye too, whose aims are selfish, Who plough that ye may reap! Come hither! here for harvest sow, Bless and be bless'd, thou sordid son, Plant gloom with light-and you and yours Like sunbeams to the moorland, Or silence to the Sabbath hills, Your names will come and go ! Your worth, like Ewden, lingering Around his hawthorn blossomsOr Stanage beckoning to his cloudsShall live in other bosoms. HYMN. LORD! to the rose thy light and air Hark! how it floats the vale along! The lone flower hears the skylark sing, The wild bird bears the foodful seed 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, Thy winds, O God! are free to blow; 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!" VOL. II. 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? Is but thy whisper, Lord, The deeds which, in old song, M |