VIII.

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.

LINES

WRITTEN DURING THE CASTLEREAGH
ADMINISTRATION.1

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 deathwhite shore

Of Albion, free no more.

II.

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.

III.

Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor!

For thy victim is no redresser ;

Thou art sole lord and possessor

Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions—they pave

Thy path to the grave.

This poem is headed England in the Harvard College manuscript book.-ED.

IV.

Hearest thou the festival din

Of Death, and Destruction, and Sin, And Wealth crying Havock! within? 'Tis the bacchanal triumph which makes Truth dumb,

Thine epithalamium.

V.

Aye, 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!

SIMILES, FOR TWO POLITICAL
CHARACTERS OF 1819.1

I.

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:-

II.

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

And the stars are none, or few:

1 Castlereagh and Sidmouth.-ED.

III.

As a shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle,

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

Wrinkling their red gills the while

IV.

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.

FRAGMENT: TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

PEOPLE of England, ye who toil and groan, Who reap the harvests which are not your own, Who weave the clothes which your oppressors

wear,

And for your own take the inclement air;
Who build warm houses. . .

And are like gods who give them all they have,
And nurse them from the cradle to the grave.

And children may inherit idleness,

From him who earns it-This is understood; 10 Private injustice may be general good.

But he who gains by base and armèd wrong,

Or guilty fraud, or base compliances, May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress Is stripped from a convicted thief, and he Left in the nakedness of infamy.

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

I.

God prosper, speed, and save,
God raise from England's grave
Her murdered Queen!

Pave with swift victory

The steps of Liberty,

Whom Britons own to be

Immortal Queen.

II.

See, she comes throned on high,
On swift Eternity!

God save the Queen!

Millions on millions wait

Firm, rapid, and elate,

On her majestic state!

God save the Queen!

III.

She is thine own pure soul
Moulding the mighty whole,-
God save the Queen!

She is thine own deep love
Rained down from heaven above,-
Wherever she rest or move,

God save our Queen!

IV.

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!

V.

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.

VI.

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!

THE INDIAN SERENADE.

I.

I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright: