תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

XIII. TO THE MEN OF KENT.

OCTOBER 1803.

VANGUARD of Liberty, ye Men of Kent,

Ye children of a soil that doth advance

Her haughty brow against the coast of France,
Now is the time to prove your hardiment!
To France be words of invitation sent!
They from their fields can see the countenance
Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance,
And hear you shouting forth your brave intent.
Left single, in bold parley, Ye, of yore,
Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath;
Confirmed the charters that were yours before ;-
No parleying now! In Britain is one breath;
We all are with you now from shore to shore :—
Ye Men of Kent, 'tis Victory or Death!

XIV. IN THE PASS OF KILLICRANKY, AN INVASION
BEING EXPECTED, OCTOBER 1803.

Six thousand Veterans practised in War's game,
Tried men, at Killicranky were arrayed

Against an equal host that wore the plaid,
Shepherds and Herdsmen.-Like a whirlwind came
The Highlanders, the slaughter spread like flame;
And Garry, thundering down his mountain road,
Was stopped, and could not breathe beneath the load
Of the dead bodies.-'Twas a day of shame
For them whom precept and the pedantry
Of cold mechanic battle do enslave.

O for a single hour of that Dundee,
Who on that day the word of onset gave!
Like conquest would the Men of England see;
And her Foes find a like inglorious grave.

XV.

ENGLAND! the time is come when thou should'st wean Thy heart from its emasculating food;

The truth should now be better understood;

Old things have been unsettled; we have seen

Fair seed-time, better harvest might have been
But for thy trespasses; and, at this day,

If for Greece, Egypt, India, Africa,

Aught good were destined, Thou would'st step between.
England! all nations in this charge agree:

But worse, more ignorant in love and hate,
Far, far more abject is thine Enemy:

Therefore the wise pray for thee, though the freight
Of thy offences be a heavy weight;

Oh grief, that Earth's best hopes rest all with Thee!

XVI.-NOVEMBER 1806.

ANOTHER year!-another deadly blow!
Another mighty Empire overthrown!
And We are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the Foe.
'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
That by our own right hands it must be wrought,
That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.
O Dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.

XVII. TO THOMAS CLARKSON, ON THE FINAL
PASSING OF THE BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF
THE SLAVE TRADE, MARCH 1807.

CLARKSON! it was an obstinate hill to climb :
How toilsome-nay, how dire it was, by Thee
Is known, by none, perhaps, so feelingly;
But Thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,
Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime,
Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,
Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat,
First roused thee.-O true yoke-fellow of Time,
Duty's intrepid liegeman, see, the palm

Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!
The bloody Writing is for ever torn,

And Thou henceforth shalt have a good man's calm,
A great man's happiness; thy zeal shall find
Repose at length, firm Friend of human kind!

XVIII.-1811.

HERE pause: the poet claims at least this praise,
That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope
Of his pure song, which did not shrink from hope
In the worst moment of these evil days;
From hope, the paramount duty that Heaven lays,
For its own honour, on man's suffering heart.
Never may from our souls one truth depart,
That an accursed thing it is to gaze

On prosperous Tyrants with a dazzled eye;
Nor, touched with due abhorrence of their guilt
For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt,
And justice labours in extremity,

Forget thy weakness, upon which is built,
O wretched Man, the throne of Tyranny!

XIX.

SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody

Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
Camöens soothed with it an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land

To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!

XX.

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room,
And Hermits are contented with their cells,
And Students with their pensive citadels :
Maids at the wheel, the Weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth, the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground:
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

XXI.

PELION and Ossa flourish side by side,
Together in immortal books enrolled :
His ancient dower Olympus hath not sold;
And that inspiring Hill, which "did divide
Into two ample horns his forehead wide,"
Shines with poetic radiance as of old;
While not an English Mountain we behold
By the celestial Muses glorified.

Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in crowds:
What was the great Parnassus' self to Thee,
Mount Skiddaw? In his natural sovereignty
Our British Hill is fairer far; he shrouds

His double front among Atlantic clouds,

And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly.

XXII. TO THE AUTHOR'S PORTRAIT.

[Painted at Rydal Mount, by W. Pickersgill, Esq., for St. John's College, Cambridge.]

Go, faithful portrait ! and where long hath knelt
Margaret, the saintly Foundress, take thy place!
And, if Time spare the colours for the grace
Which to the work surpassing skill hath dealt,
Thou, on thy rock reclined, though kingdoms melt
And states be torn up by the roots, wilt seem
To breathe in rural peace, to hear the stream,
And think and feel as once the Poet felt.
Whate'er thy fate, those features have not grown
Unrecognised through many a household tear
More prompt, more glad to fall than drops of dew
By morning shed around a flower half-blown ;
Tears of delight, that testified how true
To life thou art, and, in thy truth, how dear!

« הקודםהמשך »