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.
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!"
WRITTEN AFTER SEEING, AT MR. JOHN HEPPENSTALL'S OF
UPPERTHORPE, NEAR SHEFFIELD, THE PLATES OF AUDU-
BON'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.
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!
ELEGY ON WILLIAM COBBETT.
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.
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