XIII. 1867. {29}
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n the year of the great crime,When the false English Nobles and their Jew,By God demented, slewThe Trust they stood twice pledged to keep from wrong,One said, Take up thy Song,That breathes the mild and almost mythic timeOf England's prime!But I, Ah, me,The freedom of the fewThat, in our free Land, were indeed the free,Can song renew?Ill singing 'tis with blotting prison-bars,How high soe'er, betwixt us and the stars;Ill singing 'tis when there are none to hear;And days are nearWhen England shall forgetThe fading glow which, for a little while,Illumes her yet,The lovely smileThat grows so faint and wan,Her people shouting in her dying ear,Are not two daws worth two of any swan!Ye outlaw'd Best, who yet are brightWith the sunken light,Whose common styleIs Virtue at her gracious ease,The flower of olden sanctities,Ye haply trust, by love's benignant guile,To lure the dark and selfish broodTo their own hated good;Ye haply dreamYour lives shall still their charmful sway sustain,Unstifled by the fever'd steamThat rises from the plain.Know, 'twas the force of function high,In corporate exercise, and public aweOf Nature's, Heaven's, and England's LawThat Best, though mix'd with Bad, should reign,Which kept you in your sky!But, when the sordid Trader caughtThe loose-held sceptre from your hands distraught,And soon, to the Mechanic vain,Sold the proud toy for nought,Your charm was broke, your task was sped,Your beauty, with your honour, dead,And though you still are dreaming sweetOf being even now not lessThan Gods and Goddesses, ye shall not long so cheatYour hearts of their due heaviness.Go, get you for your evil watching shriven!Leave to your lawful Master's itching handsYour unking'd lands,But keep, at least, the dignityOf deigning not, for his smooth use, to be,Voteless, the voted delegatesOf his strange interests, loves and hates.In sackcloth, or in private strifeWith private ill, ye may please Heaven,And soothe the coming pangs of sinking life;And prayer perchance may winA term to God's indignant moodAnd the orgies of the multitude,Which now begin;But do not hope to wave the silken ragOf your unsanction'd flag,And so to guideThe great ship, helmless on the swelling tideOf that presumptuous Sea,Unlit by sun or moon, yet inly brightWith lights innumerable that give no light,Flames of corrupted will and scorn of right,Rejoicing to be free.And, now, because the dark comes on apaceWhen none can work for fear,And Liberty in every Land lies slain,And the two Tyrannies unchallenged reign,And heavy prophecies, suspended longAt supplication of the righteous few,And so discredited, to fulfilment throng,Restrain'd no more by faithful prayer or tear,And the dread baptism of blood seems nearThat brings to the humbled Earth the Time of Grace,Breathless be song,And let Christ's own look throughThe darkness, suddenly increased,To the gray secret lingering in the East.
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