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They thus would rise, must low and lower sink
Till, by repentance stung, they fear to think;
While all lie prostrate, save the tyrant few
Bent in quick turns each other to undo,
And mix the poison they themselves must
drink.

Mistrust thyself, vain Country! cease to cry,
"Knowledge will save me from the threatened

woe.

For, if than other rash ones more thou know, Yet on presumptuous wing as far would fly Above thy knowledge as they dared to go, Thou wilt provoke a heavier penalty.

II.

UPON THE LATE GENERAL FAST.

March, 1832.

RELUCTANT call it was; the rite delayed;
And in the Senate some there were who doffed
The last of their humanity, and scoffed
At providential judgments, undismayed
By their own daring. But the People prayed
As with one voice; their flinty heart grew soft
With penitential sorrow, and aloft

Their spirit mounted, crying, "God us aid!
On that with aspirations more intense,
Castised by self-abasement more profound,
This People, once so happy, so renowned
For liberty, would seek from God defence
Against far heavier ill, the pestilence
Of revolution, impiously unbound!

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Then whispered she, "The Bill is carrying out!"

They heard, and, starting up, the Brood of Night

Clapped hands, and shook with glee their

matted locks;

Joined in the transport, echoed back their shout, All Powers and Places that abhor the light -, hugging his Ballot-box!

Hurrah for

IV.

BLEST Statesman He, whose Mind's unselfish will

Leaves him at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye

Sees that, apart from magnanimity,
Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill
Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill
With patient care. What tho' assaults run
high,

They daunt not him who holds his ministry,
Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil

Its duties; -prompt to move, but firm to wait, -
Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found:
That, for the functions of an ancient State-
Strong by her charters, free because imbound,
Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate-
Perilous is sweeping change, all chance un

sound.

V.

IN ALLUSION TO VARIOUS RECENT HISTORIES
AND NOTICES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

PORTENTOUS change when History can appear
As the cool Advocate of foul device;
Reckless audacity extol, and jeer

At consciences perplexed with scruples nice!
They who bewail not must abhor the sneer
Born of Conceit, Power's blind Idolater;
Or haply sprung from vaunting Cowardice
Betrayed by mockery of holv fear

Hath it not long been said the wrath of Man
Works not the righteousness of God? Oh bend,
Laws that lay under Heaven's perpetual ban
Bend, ve Perverse! to judgments from on High,
The sacred limits of humanity.
All principles of action that transcend

VI. CONTINUED.

WHO ponders National events shall find An awful balancing of loss and gain,

Joy based on sorrow, good with ill combined,
And proud deliverance issuing out of pain
And direful throes; as if the All-ruling Mind,
With whose perfection it consists to ordain
Volcanic burst, earthquake, and hurricane,
Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind
By laws immutable. But woe for him
Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand
To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours,
And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make
dim ;

And Will, whose office, by divine command,
Is to control and check disordered Powers!

VII. CONCLUDED

LONG-FAVOURED England! be not thou misled
By monstrous theories of alien growth,
Lest alien frenzy seize thee, waxing wroth,
Self-smitten till thy garments reek dyed red
With thy own blood, which tears in torrents
shed

Fail to wash out, tears flowing ere thy troth
Be plighted, not to ease but sullen sloth,
Or wan despair-the ghost of false hope fled
Into a shameful grave. Among thy youth,
My Country! if such warning be held dear,
Then shall a Veteran's heart be thrilled with
joy,

One who would gather from eternal truth,
For time and season, rules that work to cheer-
Not scourge, to save the People-not destroy.

VIII.

MEN of the Western World! in Fate's dark book

Whence these opprobrious leaves of dire portent?

Think ye your British Ancestors forsook
Their native Land, for outrage provident;
From unsubmissive necks the bridle shook
To give, in their Descendants, freer vent
And wider range to passions turbulent,
To mutual tyranny, a deadlier look?
Nay, said a voice, soft as the south wind's
breath,

Dive through the stormy surface of the flood
To the great current flowing underneath;
Explore the countless springs of silent good;
So shall the truth be better understood,
And thy grieved Spirit brighten strong in faith.

IX.

TO THE PENNSYLVANIANS.

DAYS undefiled by luxury or sloth,
Firm self-denial, manners grave and staid,
Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,
Words that require no sanction from an oath,
And simple honesty a common growth-
This high repute, with bounteous Nature's aid,
Won confidence, now ruthlessly betrayed
At will, your power the measure of your
troth!-

All who revere the memory of Penn

X.

AT BOLOGNA, IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LATE INSURRECTIONS, 1837.

I.

Aн why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit
Of sudden passion roused shall men attain
True freedom where for ages they have lain
Bound in a dark abominable pit,

With life's best sinews more and more unknit.
Here, there, a banded few who loathe the Chain
May rise to break it: effort worse than vain
For thee, O great Italian nation, split
Into those jarring fractions.-Let thy scope
Be one fixed mind for all; thy rights approve
To thy own conscience gradually renewed;
Then trust thy cause to the arm of Fortitude,
Learn to make Time the father of wise Hope;
The light of Knowledge, and the warmth of
Love.

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XII. CONCLUDED. III.

As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
And wither, every human generation
Is to the Being of a mighty nation,
Locked in our world's embrace through weal
and wɔe;

Thought that should teach the zealot to forego
Rash schemes, to abjure all selfish agitation,
And seek through noiseless pains and modera-
tion

The unblemished good they only can bestow.
Alas! with most who weigh futurity
Against time present, passion holds the scales:
Hence equal ignorance of both prevails,
And nations sink; or, struggling to be free,
Are doomed to flounder on, like wounded
whales

Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea.

XIII.

YOUNG ENGLAND-what is then become of Old,
Of dear Old England? Think they she is dead,
Dead to the very name? Presumption fed
On empty air! That name will keep its hold

Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his In the true filial bosom's inmost fold

name

Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim,
Renounced, abandoned by degenerate Men
For state-dishonour black as ever came
To upper air from Mammon's loathsome den.

For ever. The Spirit of Alfred at the head
Of all who for her rights watch'd, toil'd and bled
Knows that this prophecy is not too bold.
What-how! shall she submit in will and deed
To Beardless Boys-an imitative race,

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A single human life have wrongly taken,
Pass sentence on themselves, confess the fact,
And, to atone for it, with soul unshaken
Kneel at the feet of Justice, and, for faith
Broken with all mankind, solicit death.

IV.

Is Death, when evil against good has fought
With such fell mastery that a man may dare
By deeds the blackest purpose to lay bare--
Is Death, for one to that condition brought,
For him, or any one, the thing that ought
To be most dreaded? Lawgivers, beware,
Lest, capital pains remitting till ye spare
The murderer, ye, by sanction to that thought
Seemingly given, debase the general mind;
Tempt the vague will tried standards to disown,
Nor only palpable restraints unbind,
But upon Honour's head disturb the crown,
Whose absolute rule permits not to withstand
In the weak love of life his least command.

V.

NOT to the object specially designed,
Howe'er momentous in itself it be,
Good to promote or curb depravity,
Is the wise Legislator's view confined.
His Spirit, when most severe, is oft most kind;
As all Authority in earth depends
On Love and Fear, their several powers he
blends,

Copying with awe the one Paternal mind.
Uncaught by processes in show humane,
He feels how far the act would derogate
From even the humblest functions of the State;
If she, self-shorn of Majesty, ordain
That never more shall hang upon her breath
The last alternative of Life or Death.

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FIT retribution, by the moral code Determined, lies beyond the State's embrace, Yet, as she may, for each peculiar case

She plants well-measured terrors in the road
Of wrongful acts. Downward it is and broad,
And, the main fear once doomed to banishment,
Far oftener then, bad ushering worse event,
Blood would be spilt that in his dark abode
Crime might lie better hid. And, should the
change

Take from the horror due to a foul deed,
Pursuit and evidence so far must fail,.
And, guilt escaping, passion then might plead
In angry spirits for her old free range,
And the "wild justice of revenge" prevail.

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OUR bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine
Of an immortal spirit, is a gift

So sacred, so informed with light divine,
That no tribunal, though most wise to sift
Deed and intent, should turn the Being adrift
Into that world where penitential tear
May not avail, nor prayer have for God's ear
A voice that world whose veil no hand can lift
For earthly sight. "Eternity and Time,"
They urge,
"have interwoven claims and rights
Not to be jeopardised through foulest crime:
The sentence rule by mercy's heaven-born
lights."

Even so but measuring not by finite sense
Infinite Power, perfect Intelligence.

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SEE the Condemned alone within his cell
And prostrate at some moment when remorse
Stings to the quick, and, with resistless force,
Assaults the pride she strove in vain to quell.
Then mark him, him who could so long rebel,
The crime confessed, a kneeling Penitent
Before the Altar, where the Sacrament
Softens his heart, till from his eyes outwell
Tears of salvation. Welcome death! while
Heaven

Does in this change exceedingly rejoice;
While yet the solemn heed the State hath given
Helps him to meet the last Tribunal's voice
In faith, which fresh offences, were he cast
On old temptations, might for ever blast.

XIII. CONCLUSION.

YES, though He well may tremble at the sound
Of his own voice, who from the judgment-seat
Sends the pale Convict to his last retreat
In death; though Listeners shudder all around,
They know the dread requital's source pro-
found;

Nor is, they feel, its wisdom obsolete-
(Would that it were !) the sacrifice unmeet
For Christian Faith. But hopeful signs abound
The social rights of man breathe purer air:
Religion deepens her preventive care;
Strike not from Law's firm hand that awful rod,,
Then, moved by needless fear of past abuse,
But leave it thence to drop for lack of use:
Oh, speed the blessed hour, Almighty God!

XIV. APOLOGY.

THE formal World relaxes her cold chain

gain,

For One who speaks in numbers; ampler scope
His utterance finds; and, conscious of the
Imagination works with bolder hope
The cause of grateful reason to sustain ;
And, serving Truth, the heart more strongly
beats

Against all barriers which his labour meets
In lofty place, or humble Life's domain.
Enough;-before us lay a painful road,
And guidance have I sought in duteous love
From Wisdom's heavenly Father. Hence hath
flowed

Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way
Each takes in this high matter, all may move
Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.

1840.

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