TO WILLOUGHBY WOOD, ESQ.,
DEPLORING ITS UNWORTHINESS THE MORE, BECAUSE EXCELLENCE ALONE CAN HARMONIZE WITH WORTH LIKE HIS; AND ALTHOUGH HIS BROTHER FOXHUNTERS WILL MARVEL WHY SUCH A COMPOSITION SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO ONE OF THEM;-I DEDICATE THIS CYCLE OF REVOLUTIONARY
Toy of the Titans ! Tiny Harp! again
I quarrel with the order of thy strings,
Establish'd by the law of sonnet-kings,
And used by giants who do nought in vain.
Was Petrarch, then mistaken in the strain
That charms Italia? Were they tasteless things
That Milton wrought? And are they mutterings
Untuneful, that pay Wordsworth with pleased pain?
No. But I see that tyrants come of slaves;
That states are won by rush of robbers' steel;
And millions starved and tortured to their graves,
Because as they are taught men think and feel;
Therefore, I change the sonnet's slavish notes
For cheaper music, suited to my thoughts.
Far uplands, gleaming suddenly, advance;
And under the broad moon their farthest snows
Shine like the sunbright lakes of new-found lands;
While from her forehead she her dark hair throws,
And (lord of midnight,) the rapt poet stands
Mute as the Roman, from the shore of France
Gazing on Britain o'er the virgin sea;
And weaving then the fates that were to be,
For generations, times, and climes, and strands,
Unknown and unconceived. Oh, unborn Year!
Disclose the comings which the past commands,
The joy, the woe, the crime, the hope, the fear,
That bid the future join the ages gone,
Still uttering the eternal mandate, "On!"
In the mark'd hut, whose flamed-up smoke declares
That morn approaches, heavily snores one
Who loves the moon, and seldom sees the sun :
Upon his chested picklocks, gun, and snares,
He sits, and nods. Starting, he wakes, and stares
Red as the fire, after his boys, who run
Through the quick-closing door, into the dun
Cold road, for warmth; while his gloom'd wife pre
His morning supper. Why do men deny
His right to live by honest labour? Why,
Ev'n as the desert's tiger, is he free?
Gamekeeper once, now poacher, (When to be
Burglar and cutthroat?) the world's worst he dares ;
Because he stole one of our Master's hares !
Why do the tears swell in his gloom'd wife's eyes? To her and hers he is already lost.
Oh, conscious river, crisping in the frost!
Thou snow, that stiflest echo! and ye skies,
Alive with stars, that seem to watch the glade,
And, there, some object, that all ghastly lies!
The last night of the dying Year hath seen
Two widows and twelve orphans newly made!
And Law will have another victim soon.
Not ten yards from our Lady's wayside spring;
Where daisy-rill, iced o'er, is glittering,
The lover's gate, and gospel-thorn between ;
Upon its back lies stark a horrid thing,
With dead eyes staring at the ghastly moon.
Not die? Who saith that Nature cannot die?
Everywhere spreadeth, all things covereth
Echoless, motionless, unbounded snow
The vagrant's footfall waketh no reply:
Starved wretch! he pauseth-Whither would he go? He listeneth finger-lipp'd, and nothing saith
Of all the thoughts that fill'd his soul with woe,
But, freezing into stiffness, lacketh breath.
Dumb deadness pilloweth day on every hill.
Earth has no sound, no motion the dead sky;
No current, sensible to ear or eye,
The muffled stream's unconquerable will.
The pulse of Being seemeth standing still;
And January is the King of Death.
Give not our blankets, tax-fed Squire, to him,
Thy willing pauper, with the dangerous brow!
He is not worthier, generous Squire, than thou,
But stronger far, and sound in wind and limb.
Know'st thou yon widow? She is wise and chaste;
And comely, though her famish'd eyes wax dim.
Her husband built a house upon the waste,
And lost it: they who found it should make haste
With help for her who, else, will die to-day.
She hath no blankets! and no parish-pay :
But she hath frosted feet, a fireless grate,
A well-swept floor-by neighbour's feet untrod! Tears, which are ice; a starved dog, a clean plate, Her wedding ring, her bible—and her God!
Ralph Leech believes (and he can read and write,)
That Conference Sunday-schools have saved the nation.
He would compel the dark to seek his light,
Yet hates, for freedom's sake, state-education.
That corn laws are "Man's wisdom, and God's
That Prairie is the Book of Common Prayer;
And that one Shakspeare is a fat old Player;
He doubts no more than that Canton's in Jersey.
Though cold the night, how fast his chapel fills!
Why? Sir De Suckem hath a message sent,
Urging the Suckems of the People's Cause
To prop Saint Suckem's Navigation laws;
Therefore, our friends petition Parliament
Against cheap sugar, slavery, and steam mills!
All hail, Westknab! Great Kinder!
Stanedge! Winhill!
come forth in ether clear and still,
Sad tidings ye convey to Hargate-rill
Of coming wreck and elemental war.
While broadens the bright sun, or noontide star;
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