74. "Let a vast assembly be,

75.

And with great solemnity

Declare with ne'er-said words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free!

"Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

76. "Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

77. "Let the charged artillery drive,
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

78. "Let the fixèd bayonet

79.

Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood,
Looking keen as one for food.

"Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

80. "Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms, and looks which are
Weapons of an unvanquished war.

81. "And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armed steeds,
Pass, a disregarded shade,

Through your phalanx undismayed.

82. "Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand,
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute :-

83. "The old laws of England-they

Whose reverend heads with age are grey,

Children of a wiser day;

And whose solemn voice must be

Thine own echo-Liberty !

84. "On those who first should violate

Such sacred heralds in their state

Rest the blood that must ensue ;
And it will not rest on you.

85. "And, if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there,
Slash and stab and maim and hew:
What they like, that let them do.
86. "With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear and less surprise,
them as they slay,

Look upon

Till their rage has died away.

87. "Then they will return with shame,
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
88. "Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand--
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street :
"And the bold true warriors
Who have hugged danger in the wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company:

89.

90.

91.

"And that slaughter to the nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular,

A volcano heard afar :

"And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom,
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again-again—again!

92. "Rise, like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number!

Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you!
Ye are many-they are few!"

LINES

WRITTEN DURING THE CASTLEREAGH ADMINISTRATION.

I. CORPSES are cold in the tomb;

Stones on the pavement are dumb;
Abortions are dead in the womb,

And their mothers look pale-like the white shore
Of Albion, free no more.

2. Her sons are as stones in the way-
They are masses of senseless clay-
They are trodden, and move not away;
The abortion with which she travaileth
Is Liberty, smitten to death.

3. Then trample and dance, thou oppressor, For thy victim is no redressor!

Thou art sole lord and possessor

Of her corpses and clods and abortions-they pave
Thy path to the grave.

4. Hear'st thou the festival din

Of Death and Destruction and Sin

And Wealth crying "Havoc!" within?

'Tis the bacchanal triumph which makes Truth dumb, Thine epithalamium.

5. Ay, marry thy ghastly Wife!

Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife

Spread thy couch in the chamber of Life! Marry Ruin, thou tyrant! and God be thy guide To the bed of the bride!

SONG

TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND.

1. MEN of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

2. Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,

Those ungrateful drones who would.
Drain your sweat-nay, drink your blood?

3. Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?
4. Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?
5. The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps ;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.
6. Sow seed, but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth,-let no impostor heap;
Weave robes,-let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear."

7. Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.

Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

8

8. With plough and spade and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre!

ENGLAND IN 1819.

AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,— Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,— Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,— An army which liberticide and prey

Make as a two-edged sword to all who wield,-
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay, -
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,—
A Senate-time's worst statute unrepealed,-

Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.

SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819.

1. As from an ancestral oak

Two empty ravens sound their clarion,
Yell by yell and croak by croak,
When they scent the noonday smoke
Of fresh human carrion :-

2. As two gibbering night-birds flit
From their bowers of deadly hue
Through the night to frighten it,
When the moon is in a fit,

And the stars are none or few :

3. As a shark and dogfish wait

Under an Atlantic isle

For the negro-ship whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,

Wrinkling their red gills the while

4. Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,

Two scorpions under one wet stone,
Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,
Two crows perched on the murrained cattle,
Two vipers tangled into one.

4. 'Wilder her enemies

In their own dark disguise!

God save our Queen!

All earthly things that dare

Her sacred name to bear,

Strip them, as kings are, bare;
God save the Queen!

5. Be her eternal throne

Built in our hearts alone

God save the Queen!

Let the oppressor hold

Canopied seats of gold;
She sits enthroned of old

O'er our hearts Queen.

6. Lips touched by seraphim

Breathe out the choral hymn

"God save the Queen!"

Sweet as if angels sang,

Loud as that trumpet's clang

Wakening the world's dead gang,

God save the Queen!