Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 3

THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN'S TRIP TO CAMBRIDGE.—AN ELECTION BALLAD. (1827.)

      As I sate down to breakfast in state,       At my living of Tithing-cum-Boring,       With Betty beside me to wait,       Came a rap that almost beat the door in.       I laid down my basin of tea,       And Betty ceased spreading the toast,       "As sure as a gun, sir," said she,       "That must be the knock of the post."       A letter—and free—bring it here—       I have no correspondent who franks.       No!  Yes!  Can it be?  Why, my dear,       'Tis our glorious, our Protestant Bankes.       "Dear sir, as I know you desire       That the Church should receive due protection,       I humbly presume to require       Your aid at the Cambridge election.       "It has lately been brought to my knowledge,       That the Ministers fully design       To suppress each cathedral and college,       And eject every learned divine.       To assist this detestable scheme       Three nuncios from Rome are come over;       They left Calais on Monday by steam,       And landed to dinner at Dover.       "An army of grim Cordeliers,       Well furnished with relics and vermin,       Will follow, Lord Westmoreland fears,       To effect what their chiefs may determine.       Lollard's bower, good authorities say,       Is again fitting up for a prison;       And a wood-merchant told me to-day       'Tis a wonder how faggots have risen.       "The finance scheme of Canning contains       A new Easter-offering tax;       And he means to devote all the gains       To a bounty on thumb-screws and racks.       Your living, so neat and compact—       Pray, don't let the news give you pain!—       Is promised, I know for a fact,       To an olive-faced Padre from Spain."       I read, and I felt my heart bleed,       Sore wounded with horror and pity;       So I flew, with all possible speed,       To our Protestant champion's committee.       True gentlemen, kind and well-bred!       No fleering! no distance! no scorn!       They asked after my wife who is dead,       And my children who never were born.       They then, like high-principled Tories,       Called our Sovereign unjust and unsteady,       And assailed him with scandalous stories,       Till the coach for the voters was ready.       That coach might be well called a casket       Of learning and brotherly love:       There were parsons in boot and in basket;       There were parsons below and above.       There were Sneaker and Griper, a pair       Who stick to Lord Mulesby like leeches;       A smug chaplain of plausible air,       Who writes my Lord Goslingham's speeches.       Dr Buzz, who alone is a host,       Who, with arguments weighty as lead,       Proves six times a week in the Post       That flesh somehow differs from bread.       Dr Nimrod, whose orthodox toes       Are seldom withdrawn from the stirrup;       Dr Humdrum, whose eloquence flows,       Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup;       Dr Rosygill puffing and fanning,       And wiping away perspiration;       Dr Humbug who proved Mr Canning       The beast in St John's Revelation.       A layman can scarce form a notion       Of our wonderful talk on the road;       Of the learning, the wit, and devotion,       Which almost each syllable showed:       Why divided allegiance agrees       So ill with our free constitution;       How Catholics swear as they please,       In hope of the priest's absolution;       How the Bishop of Norwich had bartered       His faith for a legate's commission;       How Lyndhurst, afraid to be martyr'd,       Had stooped to a base coalition;       How Papists are cased from compassion       By bigotry, stronger than steel;       How burning would soon come in fashion,       And how very bad it must feel.       We were all so much touched and excited       By a subject so direly sublime,       That the rules of politeness were slighted,       And we all of us talked at a time;       And in tones, which each moment grew louder,       Told how we should dress for the show,       And where we should fasten the powder,       And if we should bellow or no.       Thus from subject to subject we ran,       And the journey passed pleasantly o'er,       Till at last Dr Humdrum began;       From that time I remember no more.       At Ware he commenced his prelection,       In the dullest of clerical drones;       And when next I regained recollection       We were rambling o'er Trumpington stones.

SONG. (1827.)

     O stay, Madonna! stay;      'Tis not the dawn of day      That marks the skies with yonder opal streak:      The stars in silence shine;      Then press thy lips to mine,      And rest upon my neck thy fervid cheek.      O sleep, Madonna! sleep;      Leave me to watch and weep      O'er the sad memory of departed joys,      O'er hope's extinguished beam,      O'er fancy's vanished dream;      O'er all that nature gives and man destroys.      O wake, Madonna! wake;      Even now the purple lake      Is dappled o'er with amber flakes of light;      A glow is on the hill;      And every trickling rill      In golden threads leaps down from yonder height.      O fly, Madonna! fly,      Lest day and envy spy      What only love and night may safely know:      Fly, and tread softly, dear!      Lest those who hate us hear      The sounds of thy light footsteps as they go.

POLITICAL GEORGICS. (MARCH 1828.)

     "Quid faciat laetas segetes," etc.      How cabinets are formed, and how destroy'd,      How Tories are confirmed, and Whigs decoy'd,      How in nice times a prudent man should vote,      At what conjuncture he should turn his coat,      The truths fallacious, and the candid lies,      And all the lore of sleek majorities,      I sing, great Premier.  Oh, mysterious two,      Lords of our fate, the Doctor and the Jew,      If, by your care enriched, the aspiring clerk      Quits the close alley for the breezy park,      And Dolly's chops and Reid's entire resigns      For odorous fricassees and costly wines;      And you, great pair, through Windsor's shades who rove,      The Faun and Dryad of the conscious grove;      All, all inspire me, for of all I sing,      Doctor and Jew, and M—s and K—g.      Thou, to the maudlin muse of Rydal dear;      Thou more than Neptune, Lowther, lend thine ear.      At Neptune's voice the horse, with flowing mane      And pawing hoof, sprung from the obedient plain;      But at thy word the yawning earth, in fright,      Engulf'd the victor steed from mortal sight.      Haste from thy woods, mine Arbuthnot, with speed,      Rich woods, where lean Scotch cattle love to feed:      Let Gaffer Gooch and Boodle's patriot band,      Fat from the leanness of a plundered land,      True Cincinnati, quit their patent ploughs,      Their new steam-harrows, and their premium sows;      Let all in bulky majesty appear,      Roll the dull eye, and yawn th' unmeaning cheer.      Ye veteran Swiss, of senatorial wars,      Who glory in your well-earned sticks and stars;      Ye diners-out from whom we guard our spoons;      Ye smug defaulters; ye obscene buffoons;      Come all, of every race and size and form,      Corruption's children, brethren of the worm;      From those gigantic monsters who devour      The pay of half a squadron in an hour,      To those foul reptiles, doomed to night and scorn,      Of filth and stench equivocally born;      From royal tigers down to toads and lice;      From Bathursts, Clintons, Fanes, to H— and P—;      Thou last, by habit and by nature blest      With every gift which serves a courtier best,      The lap-dog spittle, the hyaena bile,      The maw of shark, the tear of crocodile,      Whate'er high station, undetermined yet,      Awaits thee in the longing Cabinet,—      Whether thou seat thee in the room of Peel,      Or from Lord Prig extort the Privy Seal,      Or our Field-marshal-Treasurer fix on thee,      A legal admiral, to rule the sea,      Or Chancery-suits, beneath thy well known reign,      Turn to their nap of fifty years again;      (Already L—, prescient of his fate,      Yields half his woolsack to thy mightier weight;)      Oh! Eldon, in whatever sphere thou shine,      For opposition sure will ne'er be thine,      Though scowls apart the lonely pride of Grey,      Though Devonshire proudly flings his staff away,      Though Lansdowne, trampling on his broken chain,      Shine forth the Lansdowne of our hearts again,      Assist me thou; for well I deem, I see      An abstract of my ample theme in thee.      Thou, as thy glorious self hath justly said,      From earliest youth, wast pettifogger bred,      And, raised to power by fortune's fickle will,      Art head and heart a pettifogger still.      So, where once Fleet-ditch ran confessed, we vie      A crowded mart and stately avenue;      But the black stream beneath runs on the same,      Still brawls in W—'s key,—still stinks like H—'s name.

THE DELIVERANCE OF VIENNA.

TRANSLATED FROM VINCENZIO DA FILICAIA.

(Published in the "Winter's Wreath," Liverpool, 1828.)

     "Le corde d'oro elette," etc.      The chords, the sacred chords of gold,      Strike, O Muse, in measure bold;      And frame a sparkling wreath of joyous songs      For that great God to whom revenge belongs.      Who shall resist his might,      Who marshals for the fight      Earthquake and thunder, hurricane and flame?      He smote the haughty race      Of unbelieving Thrace,      And turned their rage to fear, their pride to shame.      He looked in wrath from high,      Upon their vast array;      And, in the twinkling of an eye,      Tambour, and trump, and battle-cry,      And steeds, and turbaned infantry,      Passed like a dream away.      Such power defends the mansions of the just:      But, like a city without walls,      The grandeur of the mortal falls      Who glories in his strength, and makes not God his trust.      The proud blasphemers thought all earth their own;      They deemed that soon the whirlwind of their ire      Would sweep down tower and palace, dome and spire,      The Christian altars and the Augustan throne.      And soon, they cried, shall Austria bow      To the dust her lofty brow.      The princedoms of Almayne      Shall wear the Phrygian chain;      In humbler waves shall vassal Tiber roll;      And Rome a slave forlorn,      Her laurelled tresses shorn,      Shall feel our iron in her inmost soul.      Who shall bid the torrent stay?      Who shall bar the lightning's way?      Who arrest the advancing van      Of the fiery Ottoman?      As the curling smoke-wreaths fly      When fresh breezes clear the sky,      Passed away each swelling boast      Of the misbelieving host.      From the Hebrus rolling far      Came the murky cloud of war,      And in shower and tempest dread      Burst on Austria's fenceless head.      But not for vaunt or threat      Didst Thou, O Lord, forget      The flock so dearly bought, and loved so well.      Even in the very hour      Of guilty pride and power      Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell.      Then the fields were heaped with dead,      Then the streams with gore were red,      And every bird of prey, and every beast,      From wood and cavern thronged to Thy great feast.      What terror seized the fiends obscene of Nile!      How wildly, in his place of doom beneath,      Arabia's lying prophet gnashed his teeth,      And cursed his blighted hopes and wasted guile!      When, at the bidding of Thy sovereign might,      Flew on their destined path      Thy messages of wrath,      Riding on storms and wrapped in deepest night.      The Phthian mountains saw,      And quaked with mystic awe:      The proud Sultana of the Straits bowed down      Her jewelled neck and her embattled crown.      The miscreants, as they raised their eyes      Glaring defiance on Thy skies,      Saw adverse winds and clouds display      The terrors of their black array;—      Saw each portentous star      Whose fiery aspect turned of yore to flight      The iron chariots of the Canaanite      Gird its bright harness for a deadlier war.      Beneath Thy withering look      Their limbs with palsy shook;      Scattered on earth the crescent banners lay;      Trembled with panic fear      Sabre and targe and spear,      Through the proud armies of the rising day.      Faint was each heart, unnerved each hand;      And, if they strove to charge or stand      Their efforts were as vain      As his who, scared in feverish sleep      By evil dreams, essays to leap,      Then backward falls again.      With a crash of wild dismay,      Their ten thousand ranks gave way;      Fast they broke, and fast they fled;      Trampled, mangled, dying, dead,      Horse and horsemen mingled lay;      Till the mountains of the slain      Raised the valleys to the plain.      Be all the glory to Thy name divine!      The swords were our's; the arm, O Lord, was Thine.      Therefore to Thee, beneath whose footstool wait      The powers which erring man calls Chance and Fate,      To Thee who hast laid low      The pride of Europe's foe,      And taught Byzantium's sullen lords to fear,      I pour my spirit out      In a triumphant shout,      And call all ages and all lands to hear.      Thou who evermore endurest,      Loftiest, mightiest, wisest, purest,      Thou whose will destroys or saves,      Dread of tyrants, hope of slaves,      The wreath of glory is from Thee,      And the red sword of victory.      There where exulting Danube's flood      Runs stained with Islam's noblest blood      From that tremendous field,      There where in mosque the tyrants met,      And from the crier's minaret      Unholy summons pealed,      Pure shrines and temples now shall be      Decked for a worship worthy Thee.      To Thee thy whole creation pays      With mystic sympathy its praise,      The air, the earth, the seas:      The day shines forth with livelier beam;      There is a smile upon the stream,      An anthem on the breeze.      Glory, they cry, to Him whose might      Hath turned the barbarous foe to flight,      Whose arm protects with power divine      The city of his favoured line.      The caves, the woods, the rocks, repeat the sound;      The everlasting hills roll the long echoes round.      But, if Thy rescued church may dare      Still to besiege Thy throne with prayer,      Sheathe not, we implore Thee, Lord,      Sheathe not Thy victorious sword.      Still Panonia pines away,      Vassal of a double sway:      Still Thy servants groan in chains,      Still the race which hates Thee reigns:      Part the living from the dead:      Join the members to the head:      Snatch Thine own sheep from yon fell monster's hold;      Let one kind shepherd rule one undivided fold.      He is the victor, only he      Who reaps the fruits of victory.      We conquered once in vain,      When foamed the Ionian waves with gore,      And heaped Lepanto's stormy shore      With wrecks and Moslem slain.      Yet wretched Cyprus never broke      The Syrian tyrant's iron yoke.      Shall the twice vanquished foe      Again repeat his blow?      Shall Europe's sword be hung to rust in peace?      No—let the red-cross ranks      Of the triumphant Franks      Bear swift deliverance to the shrines of Greece      And in her inmost heart let Asia feel      The avenging plagues of Western fire and steel.      Oh God! for one short moment raise      The veil which hides those glorious days.      The flying foes I see Thee urge      Even to the river's headlong verge.      Close on their rear the loud uproar      Of fierce pursuit from Ister's shore      Comes pealing on the wind;      The Rab's wild waters are before,      The Christian sword behind.      Sons of perdition, speed your flight,      No earthly spear is in the rest;      No earthly champion leads to fight      The warriors of the West.      The Lord of Host asserts His old renown,      Scatters, and smites, and slays, and tramples down.      Fast, fast beyond what mortal tongue can say,      Or mortal fancy dream,      He rushes on his prey:      Till, with the terrors of the wondrous theme      Bewildered, and appalled, I cease to sing,      And close my dazzled eye, and rest my wearied wing.

THE LAST BUCCANEER. (1839.)

     The winds were yelling, the waves were swelling,      The sky was black and drear,      When the crew with eyes of flame brought the ship without a name      Alongside the last Buccaneer.      "Whence flies your sloop full sail before so fierce a gale,      When all others drive bare on the seas?      Say, come ye from the shore of the holy Salvador,      Or the gulf of the rich Caribbees?"      "From a shore no search hath found, from a gulf no line can      sound,      Without rudder or needle we steer;      Above, below, our bark, dies the sea-fowl and the shark,      As we fly by the last Buccaneer.      "To-night there shall be heard on the rocks of Cape de Verde,      A loud crash, and a louder roar;      And to-morrow shall the deep, with a heavy moaning, sweep      The corpses and wreck to the shore."      The stately ship of Clyde securely now may ride,      In the breath of the citron shades;      And Severn's towering mast securely now flies fast,      Through the sea of the balmy Trades.      From St Jago's wealthy port, from Havannah's royal fort,      The seaman goes forth without fear;      For since that stormy night not a mortal hath had sight      Of the flag of the last Buccaneer.

EPITAPH ON A JACOBITE. (1845.)

     To my true king I offered free from stain      Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.      For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth, away.      And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.      For him I languished in a foreign clime,      Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood's prime;      Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,      And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;      Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep,      Each morning started from the dream to weep;      Till God who saw me tried too sorely, gave      The resting place I asked, an early grave.      Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,      From that proud country which was once mine own,      By those white cliffs I never more must see,      By that dear language which I spake like thee,      Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear      O'er English dust.  A broken heart lies here.

LINES WRITTEN IN AUGUST. (1847.)

     The day of tumult, strife, defeat, was o'er;      Worn out with toil, and noise, and scorn, and spleen,      I slumbered, and in slumber saw once more      A room in an old mansion, long unseen.      That room, methought, was curtained from the light;      Yet through the curtains shone the moon's cold ray      Full on a cradle, where, in linen white,      Sleeping life's first soft sleep, an infant lay.      Pale flickered on the hearth the dying flame,      And all was silent in that ancient hall,      Save when by fits on the low night-wind came      The murmur of the distant waterfall.      And lo! the fairy queens who rule our birth      Drew nigh to speak the new-born baby's doom:      With noiseless step, which left no trace on earth,      From gloom they came, and vanished into gloom.      Not deigning on the boy a glance to cast      Swept careless by the gorgeous Queen of Gain;      More scornful still, the Queen of Fashion passed,      With mincing gait and sneer of cold disdain.      The Queen of Power tossed high her jewelled head,      And o'er her shoulder threw a wrathful frown;      The Queen of Pleasure on the pillow shed      Scarce one stray rose-leaf from her fragrant crown.      Still Fay in long procession followed Fay;      And still the little couch remained unblest:      But, when those wayward sprites had passed away,      Came One, the last, the mightiest, and the best.      Oh glorious lady, with the eyes of light      And laurels clustering round thy lofty brow,      Who by the cradle's side didst watch that night,      Warbling a sweet, strange music, who wast thou?      "Yes, darling; let them go;" so ran the strain:      "Yes; let them go, gain, fashion, pleasure, power,      And all the busy elves to whose domain      Belongs the nether sphere, the fleeting hour.      "Without one envious sigh, one anxious scheme,      The nether sphere, the fleeting hour resign.      Mine is the world of thought, the world of dream,      Mine all the past, and all the future mine.      "Fortune, that lays in sport the mighty low,      Age, that to penance turns the joys of youth,      Shall leave untouched the gifts which I bestow,      The sense of beauty and the thirst of truth.      "Of the fair brotherhood who share my grace,      I, from thy natal day, pronounce thee free;      And, if for some I keep a nobler place,      I keep for none a happier than for thee.      "There are who, while to vulgar eyes they seem      Of all my bounties largely to partake,      Of me as of some rival's handmaid deem      And court me but for gain's, power's, fashion's sake.      "To such, though deep their lore, though wide their fame,      Shall my great mysteries be all unknown:      But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame,      Wilt not thou love me for myself alone?      "Yes; thou wilt love me with exceeding love;      And I will tenfold all that love repay,      Still smiling, though the tender may reprove,      Still faithful, though the trusted may betray.      "For aye mine emblem was, and aye shall be,      The ever-during plant whose bough I wear,      Brightest and greenest then, when every tree      That blossoms in the light of Time is bare.      "In the dark hour of shame, I deigned to stand      Before the frowning peers at Bacon's side:      On a far shore I smoothed with tender hand,      Through months of pain, the sleepless bed of Hyde:      "I brought the wise and brave of ancient days      To cheer the cell where Raleigh pined alone:      I lighted Milton's darkness with the blaze      Of the bright ranks that guard the eternal throne.      "And even so, my child, it is my pleasure      That thou not then alone shouldst feel me nigh,      When in domestic bliss and studious leisure,      Thy weeks uncounted come, uncounted fly;      "Not then alone, when myriads, closely pressed      Around thy car, the shout of triumph raise;      Nor when, in gilded drawing rooms, thy breast      Swells at the sweeter sound of woman's praise.      "No:  when on restless night dawns cheerless morrow,      When weary soul and wasting body pine,      Thine am I still, in danger, sickness, sorrow,      In conflict, obloquy, want, exile, thine;      "Thine, where on mountain waves the snowbirds scream,      Where more than Thule's winter barbs the breeze,      Where scarce, through lowering clouds, one sickly gleam      Lights the drear May-day of Antarctic seas;      "Thine, when around thy litter's track all day      White sandhills shall reflect the blinding glare;      Thine, when, through forests breathing death, thy way      All night shall wind by many a tiger's lair;      "Thine most, when friends turn pale, when traitors fly,      When, hard beset, thy spirit, justly proud,      For truth, peace, freedom, mercy, dares defy      A sullen priesthood and a raving crowd.      "Amidst the din of all things fell and vile,      Hate's yell, and envy's hiss, and folly's bray,      Remember me; and with an unforced smile      See riches, baubles, flatterers, pass away.      "Yes:  they will pass away; nor deem it strange:      They come and go, as comes and goes the sea:      And let them come and go:  thou, through all change,      Fix thy firm gaze on virtue and on me."