The seed ye sow, another reaps; Sow seed, but let no tyrant reap; Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, 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, Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield; SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819. 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; As two gibbering night-birds flit, From their bowers of deadly hue, Through the night to frighten it, When the morn is in a fit, And the stars are none or few; As a shark and dog-fish wait For the negro-ship, whose freight Wrinkling their red gills the while→ 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. AN ODE TO THE ASSERTORS OF LIBERTY. ARISE, arise, arise! There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread; Be your wounds like eyes To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. What other grief were it just to pay? Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they; Who said they were slain on the battle-day? Awaken, awaken, awaken! The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes; To the dust, where your kindred repose, repose: Their bones in the grave will start and move, Wave, wave high the banner! When Freedom is riding to conquest by: Be famine and toil, giving sigh for sigh. Glory, glory, glory, To those who have greatly suffered and done! Never name in story Was greater than that which ye shall have won. Conquerors have conquered their foes alone, Whose revenge, pride, and power, they have overthrown : Ride ye, more victorious, over your own. Bind, bind every brow With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine: Hide the blood-stains now With hues which sweet nature has made divine,Green strength, azure hope, and eternity. But let not the pansy among them be; Ye were injured, and that means memory. ODE TO HEAVEN. CHORUS OF SPIRITS. FIRST SPIRIT. PALACE-ROOF of cloudless nights! Deep, immeasurable, vast, Which art now and which wert then Of acts and ages yet to come! Glorious shapes have life in thee, Living globes which ever throng Thy deep chasms and wildernesses; And green worlds that glide along; And swift stars with flashing tresses ; And icy moons most cold and bright, And mighty suns beyond the night, Atoms of intensest light. Even thy name is as a god, Heaven |