Ebenezer Elliott was to the artisans of England what Burns was to the peasantry of Scotland. His Corn-law Rhymes contributed not a little to that overwhelming tide of popular opinion and feeling which resulted in the repeal of the tax on bread. Well has the eloquent author of The Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain said of him, "Not corn-law repealers alone, but all Britons who moisten their scanty bread with the sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to his inspiring lay, for the mighty bound which the laboring mind of England has taken in our day."
Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! playNo trick of priestcraft here!Back, puny lordling! darest thou layA hand on Elliott's bier?Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,Beneath his feet he trod.
He knew the locust swarm that cursedThe harvest-fields of God.On these pale lips, the smothered thoughtWhich England's millions feel,A fierce and fearful splendor caught,As from his forge the steel.Strong-armed as Thor, a shower of fireHis smitten anvil flung;God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire,He gave them all a tongue!
Then let the poor man's horny handsBear up the mighty dead,And labor's swart and stalwart bandsBehind as mourners tread.Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds,Leave rank its minster floor;Give England's green and daisied groundsThe poet of the poor!
Lay down upon his Sheaf's green vergeThat brave old heart of oak,With fitting dirge from sounding forge,And pall of furnace smoke!Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds,And axe and sledge are swung,And, timing to their stormy sounds,His stormy lays are sung.
There let the peasant's step be heard,The grinder chant his rhyme,Nor patron's praise nor dainty wordBefits the man or time.No soft lament nor dreamer's sighFor him whose words were bread;The Runic rhyme and spell wherebyThe foodless poor were fed!
Pile up the tombs of rank and pride,O England, as thou wilt!With pomp to nameless worth denied,Emblazon titled guilt!No part or lot in these we claim;But, o'er the sounding wave,A common right to Elliott's name,A freehold in his grave!1850
This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast of evil consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of March speech of Daniel Webster in support of the "compromise," and the Fugitive Slave Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated it. On the contrary my admiration of the splendid personality and intellectual power of the great Senator was never stronger than when I laid down his speech, and, in one of the saddest moments of my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote, with painful clearness its sure results,—the Slave Power arrogant and defiant, strengthened and encouraged to carry out its scheme for the extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution of the Union, the guaranties of personal liberty in the free States broken down, and the whole country made the hunting-ground of slave-catchers. In the horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowful rebuke. But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of judgment. Years after, inThe Lost OccasionI gave utterance to an almost universal regret that the great statesman did not live to see the flag which he loved trampled under the feet of Slavery, and, in view of this desecration, make his last days glorious in defence of "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable."
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawnWhich once he wore!The glory from his gray hairs goneForevermore!
Revile him not, the Tempter hathA snare for all;And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,Befit his fall!
Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,When he who mightHave lighted up and led his age,Falls back in night.
Scorn! would the angels laugh, to markA bright soul driven,Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,From hope and heaven!
Let not the land once proud of himInsult him now,Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,Dishonored brow.
But let its humbled sons, instead,From sea to lake,A long lament, as for the dead,In sadness make.
Of all we loved and honored, naughtSave power remains;A fallen angel's pride of thought,Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyesThe soul has fledWhen faith is lost, when honor dies,The man is dead!
Then, pay the reverence of old daysTo his dead fame;Walk backward, with averted gaze,And hide the shame!1850
Some die too late and some too soon,At early morning, heat of noon,Or the chill evening twilight. Thou,Whom the rich heavens did so endowWith eyes of power and Jove's own brow,With all the massive strength that fillsThy home-horizon's granite hills,With rarest gifts of heart and headFrom manliest stock inherited,New England's stateliest type of man,In port and speech Olympian;
Whom no one met, at first, but tookA second awed and wondering look(As turned, perchance, the eyes of GreeceOn Phidias' unveiled masterpiece);Whose words in simplest homespun clad,The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had,With power reserved at need to reachThe Roman forum's loftiest speech,Sweet with persuasion, eloquentIn passion, cool in argument,Or, ponderous, falling on thy foesAs fell the Norse god's hammer blows,Crushing as if with Talus' flailThrough Error's logic-woven mail,And failing only when they triedThe adamant of the righteous side,—Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereavedOf old friends, by the new deceived,Too soon for us, too soon for thee,Beside thy lonely Northern sea,Where long and low the marsh-lands spread,Laid wearily down thy August head.
Thou shouldst have lived to feel belowThy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow;The late-sprung mine that underlaidThy sad concessions vainly made.Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wallThe star-flag of the Union fall,And armed rebellion pressing onThe broken lines of Washington!No stronger voice than thine had thenCalled out the utmost might of men,To make the Union's charter freeAnd strengthen law by liberty.How had that stern arbitramentTo thy gray age youth's vigor lent,Shaming ambition's paltry prizeBefore thy disillusioned eyes;Breaking the spell about thee woundLike the green withes that Samson bound;Redeeming in one effort grand,Thyself and thy imperilled land!Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee,O sleeper by the Northern sea,The gates of opportunity!God fills the gaps of human need,Each crisis brings its word and deed.Wise men and strong we did not lack;But still, with memory turning back,In the dark hours we thought of thee,And thy lone grave beside the sea.
Above that grave the east winds blow,And from the marsh-lands drifting slowThe sea-fog comes, with evermoreThe wave-wash of a lonely shore,And sea-bird's melancholy cry,As Nature fain would typifyThe sadness of a closing scene,The loss of that which should have been.But, where thy native mountains bareTheir foreheads to diviner air,Fit emblem of enduring fame,One lofty summit keeps thy name.For thee the cosmic forces didThe rearing of that pyramid,The prescient ages shaping withFire, flood, and frost thy monolith.Sunrise and sunset lay thereonWith hands of light their benison,The stars of midnight pause to setTheir jewels in its coronet.And evermore that mountain massSeems climbing from the shadowy passTo light, as if to manifestThy nobler self, thy life at best!1880
Dear friends, who read the world aright,And in its common forms discernA beauty and a harmonyThe many never learn!
Kindred in soul of him who foundIn simple flower and leaf and stoneThe impulse of the sweetest laysOur Saxon tongue has known,—
Accept this record of a lifeAs sweet and pure, as calm and good,As a long day of blandest JuneIn green field and in wood.
How welcome to our ears, long painedBy strife of sect and party noise,The brook-like murmur of his songOf nature's simple joys!
The violet' by its mossy stone,The primrose by the river's brim,And chance-sown daffodil, have foundImmortal life through him.
The sunrise on his breezy lake,The rosy tints his sunset brought,World-seen, are gladdening all the valesAnd mountain-peaks of thought.
Art builds on sand; the works of prideAnd human passion change and fall;But that which shares the life of GodWith Him surviveth all.1851.
Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom,In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,Her mysteries are told;Who, wise in lore of wood and mead,The seasons' pictured scrolls can read,In lessons manifold!
Thanks for the courtesy, and gayGood-humor, which on Washing DayOur ill-timed visit bore;Thanks for your graceful oars, which brokeThe morning dreams of Artichoke,Along his wooded shore!
Varied as varying Nature's ways,Sprites of the river, woodland fays,Or mountain nymphs, ye seem;Free-limbed Dianas on the green,Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine,Upon your favorite stream.
The forms of which the poets told,The fair benignities of old,Were doubtless such as you;What more than Artichoke the rillOf Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hillArcadia's mountain-view?
No sweeter bowers the bee delayed,In wild Hymettus' scented shade,Than those you dwell among;Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwinedWith roses, over banks inclinedWith trembling harebells hung!
A charmed life unknown to death,Immortal freshness Nature hath;Her fabled fount and glenAre now and here: Dodona's shrineStill murmurs in the wind-swept pine,—All is that e'er hath been.
The Beauty which old Greece or RomeSung, painted, wrought, lies close at home;We need but eye and earIn all our daily walks to traceThe outlines of incarnate grace,The hymns of gods to hear!1851
A track of moonlight on a quiet lake,Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shoreWhisper of peace, and with the low winds makeSuch harmonies as keep the woods awake,And listening all night long for their sweet sakeA green-waved slope of meadow, hovered o'erBy angel-troops of lilies, swaying lightOn viewless stems, with folded wings of white;A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seenWhere the low westering day, with gold and green,Purple and amber, softly blended, fillsThe wooded vales, and melts among the hills;A vine-fringed river, winding to its restOn the calm bosom of a stormless sea,Bearing alike upon its placid breast,With earthly flowers and heavenly' stars impressed,The hues of time and of eternitySuch are the pictures which the thought of thee,O friend, awakeneth,—charming the keen painOf thy departure, and our sense of lossRequiting with the fullness of thy gain.Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross,Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine,Of thy beatitude the radiant sign!No sob of grief, no wild lament be there,To break the Sabbath of the holy air;But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayerOf hearts still waiting for a rest like thine.O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if henceforth,With sweet and pure similitudes of earth,We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green,Of love's inheritance a priceless part,Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is seenTo paint, forgetful of the tricks of art,With pencil dipped alone in colors of the heart.1851.
God's love and peace be with thee, whereSoe'er this soft autumnal airLifts the dark tresses of thy hair.
Whether through city casements comesIts kiss to thee, in crowded rooms,Or, out among the woodland blooms,
It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face,Imparting, in its glad embrace,Beauty to beauty, grace to grace!
Fair Nature's book together read,The old wood-paths that knew our tread,The maple shadows overhead,—
The hills we climbed, the river seenBy gleams along its deep ravine,—All keep thy memory fresh and green.
Where'er I look, where'er I stray,Thy thought goes with me on my way,And hence the prayer I breathe to-day;
O'er lapse of time and change of scene,The weary waste which lies betweenThyself and me, my heart I lean.
Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, norThe half-unconscious power to drawAll hearts to thine by Love's sweet law.
With these good gifts of God is castThy lot, and many a charm thou hastTo hold the blessed angels fast.
If, then, a fervent wish for theeThe gracious heavens will heed from me,What should, dear heart, its burden be?
The sighing of a shaken reed,—What can I more than meekly pleadThe greatness of our common need?
God's love,—unchanging, pure, and true,—The Paraclete white-shining throughHis peace,—the fall of Hermon's dew!
With such a prayer, on this sweet day,As thou mayst hear and I may say,I greet thee, dearest, far away!1851.
It can scarcely be necessary to say that there are elements in the character and passages in the history of the great Hungarian statesman and orator, which necessarily command the admiration of those, even, who believe that no political revolution was ever worth the price of human blood.
Type of two mighty continents!—combiningThe strength of Europe with the warmth and glowOf Asian song and prophecy,—the shiningOf Orient splendors over Northern snow!Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speakWelcome to him, who, while he strove to breakThe Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote offAt the same blow the fetters of the serf,Rearing the altar of his FatherlandOn the firm base of freedom, and therebyLifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand,Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie!Who shall be Freedom's mouthpiece? Who shall giveHer welcoming cheer to the great fugitive?Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying,Is scourging back to slavery's hell of painThe swarthy Kossuths of our land again!Not he whose utterance now from lips designedThe bugle-march of Liberty to wind,And call her hosts beneath the breaking light,The keen reveille of her morn of fight,Is but the hoarse note of the blood-hound's baying,The wolf's long howl behind the bondman's flight!Oh for the tongue of him who lies at restIn Quincy's shade of patrimonial trees,Last of the Puritan tribunes and the best,To lend a voice to Freedom's sympathies,And hail the coming of the noblest guestThe Old World's wrong has given the New World of the West!1851.
These lines were addressed to my worthy friend Joshua Coffin, teacher, historian, and antiquarian. He was one of the twelve persons who with William Lloyd Garrison formed the first anti-slavery society in New England.
Old friend, kind friend! lightly downDrop time's snow-flakes on thy crown!Never be thy shadow less,Never fail thy cheerfulness;Care, that kills the cat, may, ploughWrinkles in the miser's brow,Deepen envy's spiteful frown,Draw the mouths of bigots down,Plague ambition's dream, and sitHeavy on the hypocrite,Haunt the rich man's door, and rideIn the gilded coach of pride;—Let the fiend pass!—what can heFind to do with such as thee?Seldom comes that evil guestWhere the conscience lies at rest,And brown health and quiet witSmiling on the threshold sit.
I, the urchin unto whom,In that smoked and dingy room,Where the district gave thee ruleO'er its ragged winter school,Thou didst teach the mysteriesOf those weary A B C's,—Where, to fill the every pauseOf thy wise and learned saws,Through the cracked and crazy wallCame the cradle-rock and squall,And the goodman's voice, at strifeWith his shrill and tipsy wife,Luring us by stories old,With a comic unction told,More than by the eloquenceOf terse birchen arguments(Doubtful gain, I fear), to lookWith complacence on a book!—Where the genial pedagogueHalf forgot his rogues to flog,Citing tale or apologue,Wise and merry in its driftAs was Phaedrus' twofold gift,Had the little rebels known it,Risum et prudentiam monet!I,—the man of middle years,In whose sable locks appearsMany a warning fleck of gray,—Looking back to that far day,And thy primal lessons, feelGrateful smiles my lips unseal,As, remembering thee, I blendOlden teacher, present friend,Wise with antiquarian search,In the scrolls of State and ChurchNamed on history's title-page,Parish-clerk and justice sage;For the ferule's wholesome aweWielding now the sword of law.
Threshing Time's neglected sheaves,Gathering up the scattered leavesWhich the wrinkled sibyl castCareless from her as she passed,—Twofold citizen art thou,Freeman of the past and now.He who bore thy name of oldMidway in the heavens did holdOver Gibeon moon and sun;Thou hast bidden them backward run;Of to-day the present rayFlinging over yesterday!
Let the busy ones derideWhat I deem of right thy prideLet the fools their treadmills grind,Look not forward nor behind,Shuffle in and wriggle out,Veer with every breeze about,Turning like a windmill sail,Or a dog that seeks his tail;Let them laugh to see thee fastTabernacled in the Past,Working out with eye and lip,Riddles of old penmanship,Patient as Belzoni thereSorting out, with loving care,Mummies of dead questions strippedFrom their sevenfold manuscript.
Dabbling, in their noisy way,In the puddles of to-day,Little know they of that vastSolemn ocean of the past,On whose margin, wreck-bespread,Thou art walking with the dead,Questioning the stranded years,Waking smiles, by turns, and tears,As thou callest up againShapes the dust has long o'erlain,—Fair-haired woman, bearded man,Cavalier and Puritan;In an age whose eager viewSeeks but present things, and new,Mad for party, sect and gold,Teaching reverence for the old.
On that shore, with fowler's tact,Coolly bagging fact on fact,Naught amiss to thee can float,Tale, or song, or anecdote;Village gossip, centuries old,Scandals by our grandams told,What the pilgrim's table spread,Where he lived, and whom he wed,Long-drawn bill of wine and beerFor his ordination cheer,Or the flip that wellnigh madeGlad his funeral cavalcade;Weary prose, and poet's lines,Flavored by their age, like wines,Eulogistic of some quaint,Doubtful, puritanic saint;Lays that quickened husking jigs,Jests that shook grave periwigs,When the parson had his jokesAnd his glass, like other folks;Sermons that, for mortal hours,Taxed our fathers' vital powers,As the long nineteenthlies pouredDownward from the sounding-board,And, for fire of Pentecost,Touched their beards December's frost.
Time is hastening on, and weWhat our fathers are shall be,—Shadow-shapes of memory!Joined to that vast multitudeWhere the great are but the good,And the mind of strength shall proveWeaker than the heart of love;Pride of graybeard wisdom lessThan the infant's guilelessness,And his song of sorrow moreThan the crown the Psalmist woreWho shall then, with pious zeal,At our moss-grown thresholds kneel,From a stained and stony pageReading to a careless age,With a patient eye like thine,Prosing tale and limping line,Names and words the hoary rimeOf the Past has made sublime?Who shall work for us as wellThe antiquarian's miracle?Who to seeming life recallTeacher grave and pupil small?Who shall give to thee and meFreeholds in futurity?
Well, whatever lot be mine,Long and happy days be thine,Ere thy full and honored ageDates of time its latest page!Squire for master, State for school,Wisely lenient, live and rule;Over grown-up knave and roguePlay the watchful pedagogue;Or, while pleasure smiles on duty,At the call of youth and beauty,Speak for them the spell of lawWhich shall bar and bolt withdraw,And the flaming sword removeFrom the Paradise of Love.Still, with undimmed eyesight, poreAncient tome and record o'er;Still thy week-day lyrics croon,Pitch in church the Sunday tune,Showing something, in thy part,Of the old Puritanic art,Singer after Sternhold's heartIn thy pew, for many a year,Homilies from Oldbug hear,Who to wit like that of South,And the Syrian's golden mouth,Doth the homely pathos addWhich the pilgrim preachers had;Breaking, like a child at play,Gilded idols of the day,Cant of knave and pomp of foolTossing with his ridicule,Yet, in earnest or in jest,Ever keeping truth abreast.And, when thou art called, at last,To thy townsmen of the past,Not as stranger shalt thou come;Thou shalt find thyself at homeWith the little and the big,Woollen cap and periwig,Madam in her high-laced ruff,Goody in her home-made stuff,—Wise and simple, rich and poor,Thou hast known them all before!
1851