Part 6

A false majority, by stealth, Have got her fast, and sway the rod: A headless tyrant built of wealth, The hypocrite, the belly-God.

XXXII

To him the daily hymns they raise: His tastes are sought: his will is done: He sniffs the putrid steam of praise, Place for true England here is none!

XXXIII

But can a distant race discern The difference ’twixt her and him? My friend, that will you bid them learn. He shames and binds her, head and limb.

XXXIV

Old wood has blossoms of this sort. Though sound at core, she is old wood. If freemen hate her, one retort She has; but one!—‘You are my blood.’

XXXV

A poet, half a prophet, rose In recent days, and called for power. I love him; but his mountain prose— His Alp and valley and wild flower—

XXXVI

Proclaimed our weakness, not its source. What medicine for disease had he? Whom summoned for a show of force? Our titular aristocracy!

XXXVII

Why, these are great at City feasts; From City riches mainly rise: ’Tis well to hear them, when the beasts That die for us they eulogize!

XXXVIII

But these, of all the liveried crew Obeisant in Mammon’s walk, Most deferent ply the facial screw, The spinal bend, submissive talk.

XXXIX

Small fear that they will run to books (At least the better form of seed)! I, too, have hoped from their good looks, And fables of their Northman breed;—

Have hoped that they the land would head In acts magnanimous; but, lo, When fainting heroes beg for bread They frown: where they are driven they go.

XLI

Good health, my friend! and may your lot Be cheerful o’er the Western rounds. This butter-woman’s market-trot Of verse is passing market-bounds.

XLII

Adieu! the sun sets; he is gone. On banks of fog faint lines extend: Adieu! bring back a braver dawn To England, and to me my friend.

November 15th, 1867.

TIME AND SENTIMENT

I SEE a fair young couple in a wood, And as they go, one bends to take a flower, That so may be embalmed their happy hour, And in another day, a kindred mood, Haply together, or in solitude, Recovered what the teeth of Time devour, The joy, the bloom, and the illusive power, Wherewith by their young blood they are endued To move all enviable, framed in May, And of an aspect sisterly with Truth: Yet seek they with Time’s laughing things to wed: Who will be prompted on some pallid day To lift the hueless flower and show that dead, Even such, and by this token, is their youth.

LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT

ON a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. And now upon his western wing he leaned, Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened, Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows. Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars With memory of the old revolt from Awe, He reached a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law.

THE STAR SIRIUS