LINES TO A CRITIC. HONEY from silkworms who can gather, The grass may grow in winter weather, Hate men who cant, and men who pray, An equal passion to repay,- Or seek some slave of power and gold, A passion like the one I prove I hate thy want of truth and love, How should I then hate thee? LINES WRITTEN DURING THE CASTLEREAGH ADMINISTRATION. 1. 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. II. Her sons are as stones in the way- The abortion with which she travaileth III. Then trample and dance, thou oppressor, Thou art sole lord and possessor Of her corpses and clods and abortions-they pave IV. 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. V. Ay, marry thy ghastly Wife! Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife SONG-TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND. I. MEN of England, wherefore plough II. Wherefore feed and clothe and save, III. Wherefore, Bees of England, forge IV. Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, V. The seed ye sow another reaps; VI. Sow seed, but let no tyrant reap; VII. Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see VIII. With plough and spade and hoe and loom, SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819. I. As from an ancestral oak Two empty ravens sound their clarion, II. As two gibbering night-birds flit And the stars are none or few: III. As a shark and dogfish wait 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, ENGLAND IN 1819. AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,- But leech-like to their fainting country cling, Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,- Make as a two-edged sword to all who wield,— Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,- A Senate-time's worst statute unrepealed,- |