IX

Peace, his triumph will be sung

By some yet unmolded tongue,

Far on in summers that we shall not see;
Peace, it is a day of pain

For one about whose patriarchal knee
Late the little children clung;

O peace, it is a day of pain

For one upon whose hand and heart and brain
Once the weight and fate of Europe hung.

Ours the pain, be his the gain!
More than is of man's degree
Must be with us, watching here
At this, our great solemnity.
Whom we see not, we revere;
We revere, and we refrain

From talk of battles loud and vain,

And brawling memories all too free.
For such a wise humility

As befits a solemn fame:

We revere, and while we hear

The tides of music's golden sea

Setting toward eternity,

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we,
Until we doubt not that for one so true
There must be other nobler work to do
Than when he fought at Waterloo;
And Victor he must ever be,

For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill
And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break and work their will;

Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll
Round us, each with different powers,
And other forms of life than ours,

What know we greater than the soul?

On God and godlike men we build our trust.
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears;
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears:
The black earth yawns; the mortal disappears;
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

He is gone who seemed so great—
Gone; but nothing can bereave him
Of the force he made his own
Being here, and we believe him
Something far advanced in state,

And that he wears a truer crown
Than any wreath that man can weave him.
Speak no more of his renown,

Lay your earthly fancies down,

And in the vast cathedral leave him,

God accept him, Christ receive him!

II. GEORGE CANNING

POLITICAL POETRY

["The Needy Knife-Grinder,” which follows, was one of the most notable contributions which appeared in "The Anti-Jacobin. It is scarcely necessary to point out its satire upon the humanitarian sympathies of those Englishmen who had been carried away by the ideas of the French Revolution. The verses a parody of Stanley's "Sapphics "—were the joint production of George Canning and John Hookham Frere.]

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE NEEDY KNIFE-GRINDER

FRIEND OF HUMANITY

Needy knife-grinder! Whither are you going?
Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order;
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches!

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike

Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day "Knives and
Scissors to grind O!"

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?

Was it some squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney?

Was it the squire for killing of his game? Or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit?

Have you not read the "Rights of Man," by Tom Paine?
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,

Ready to fall as soon as you have told your

Pitiful story.

KNIFE-GRINDER

Story, God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;
Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,

This

poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.

Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish
Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part I never love to meddle

With politics, sir.

FRIEND OF HUMANITY

I give thee sixpence; I will see thee damned first,
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs

Can rouse to vengeance!

Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,

Spiritless outcast!

[Kicks the K-g, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]

THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND.

[The following extract from a speech on Parliamentary Reform affords an excellent example of his style of eloquence.]

Other nations, excited by the example of the liberty which this country has long possessed, have attempted to copy our Constitution; and some of them have shot beyond it in the fierceness of heir pursuit. I grudge not to other nations that share of liberty which they may acquire; in the name of God, let them enjoy it! But let us warn them that they lose not the object of their desire by the very eagerness with which they attempt to grasp it. heritors and conservators of national freedom, let us, while

In

others are seeking it in restlessness and trouble, be a steady and shining light to guide their course; not a wandering meteor to bewilder and mislead them.

Let it not be thought that this is an unfriendly or disheartening counsel to those who are either struggling under the pressure of harsh government, or exulting in the novelty of sudden emancipation. It is addressed much. rather to those who, though cradled and educated amidst the sober blessings of the British Constitution, pant for other schemes of liberty than those which that Constitution sanctions, other than are compatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints of social obligations; of some of whom it may be said, in the language which Dryden puts into the mouth of one of the most extravagant of his heroes, that

"They would be free as nature first made man,

Ere the base laws of servitude began,

When wild in the woods the noble savage ran."

Noble and swelling sentiments! but such as cannot be reduced into practice. Grand ideas! but which must be qualified and adjusted by a compromise between the aspirings of individuals, and a due concern for the general tranquility; must be subdued and chastened by reason and experience before they can be directed to any useful end! A search after abstract perfection in government may produce in generous minds an enterprise and enthusiasm to be recorded by the historian and to be celebrated by the poet; but such perfection is not an object of reasonable pursuit, because it is not one of possible attainment; and never yet did a passionate struggle after an absolutely unattainable object fail to be productive of misery to an individual, of madness and confusion to a