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Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery shrouds,
That with the hurly Death itself awakes:
Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose
To the wet seaboy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy lowly clown;
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

LAMENTATION OVER PALESTINE.
REFT of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widowed queen, forgotten Sion, mourn!
Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone?
While sons unblest their angry lustre fling,
And wayworn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?—
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy viewed?
Where now thy might, which all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate;
No suppliant nations in thy temple wait;
No prophet bards, thy glittering courts among,
Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song:
But lawless Force, and meagre Want, are there,
And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear;
While cold Oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid,
Folds his dank wing beneath the ivy shade.

Ye guardian saints! ye warrior sons of heaven!
To whose high care Judea's state was given !
O, wont of old your nightly watch to keep,
A host of gods, on Sion's towery steep!
If e'er your secret footsteps linger still
By Siloa's fount, or Tabor's echoing hill;
If e'er your song on Salem's glories dwell,
And mourn the captive land you loved so well;

(For oft, 'tis said, in Kedron's palmy vale,
Mysterious harpings swell the midnight gale,
And, blest as balmy dews that Hermon cheer,
Melt in soft cadence on the pilgrim's ear!)
Forgive, blest spirits, if a theme so high
Mock the weak notes of mortal minstrelsy!

O Thou, their Guide, their Father, and their Lord!
Loved for thy mercies, for thy power adored:
If at thy name the waves forgot their force,
And refluent Jordan sought his trembling source;
If at thy name like sheep the mountains fled,
And haughty Sirion bowed his marble head;
To Israel's woes a pitying ear incline,

And raise from earth thy long-neglected vine!
Her rifled fruits behold the heathen bear,
And wild-wood boars her mangled clusters tear.
Was it for this she stretched her peopled reign
From far Euphrates to the western main?
For this, o'er many a hill her boughs she threw,
And her wide arms like goodly cedars grew ?
For this, proud Edom slept beneath her shade,
And o'er the Arabian deep her branches played?
O feeble boast of transitory power!
Vain, fruitless trust of Judah's happier hour!
Not such their hope, when through the parted main
The cloudy wonder led the warrior train :
Not such their hope, when through the fields of night
The torch of heaven diffused its friendly light:
Not, when fierce Conquest urged the onward war,
And hurled stern Canaan from his iron car:
Nor when five monarchs led to Gideon's fight,
In rude array, the harnessed Amorite:
Yes-in that hour, by mortal accents stayed,
The lingering sun his fiery wheels delayed;
The moon, obedient, trembled at the sound,
Curbed her pale car, and checked her mazy round!
Let Sinai tell-for she beheld his might,

And God's own darkness veiled her conscious height;

(He, cherub-borne, upon the whirlwind rode,
And the red mountain like a furnace glowed :)
Let Sinai tell-but who shall dare recite
His praise, his power, eternal, infinite?
Awe-struck, I cease; nor bid my strains aspire,
Or serve his altar with unhallowed fire.

ON SLAVERY.

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,
My soul is sick with every day's report

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart

It does not feel for man.

The natural bond

Of brotherhood is severed as the flax

That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not coloured like his own; and, having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey!
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast!

Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,

And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,

And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home-then why abroad?
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein.
Of all your empire, that where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

THE BOY.

THERE'S Something in a noble boy,
A brave, free-hearted, careless one,
With his unchecked, unbidden joy,
His dread of books and love of fun,
And in his clear and ready smile,
Unshaded by a thought of guile,
And unrepressed by sadness,-
Which brings me to my childhood back,
As if I trod its very track,

And felt its very gladness.

And yet it is not in his play,

When every trace of thought is lost, And not when you would call him gay, That his bright presence thrills me most. His shout may ring upon the hill, His voice be echoed in the hall,

His merry laugh like music trill, And I in sadness hear it all,—

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For, like the wrinkles on my brow, I scarcely notice such things now,~ But when, amid the earnest game,

He stops, as if he music heard,
And, heedless of his shouted name
As of the carol of a bird,
Stands gazing on the empty air,
As if some dream were passing there ;-
'Tis then that on his face I look,
His beautiful but thoughtful face,
And, like a long-forgotten book,
Its sweet familiar meanings trace,
Remembering a thousand things
Which passed me on those golden wings,
Which time has fettered now,-

Things that came o'er me with a thrill,
And left me silent, sad, and still,

And threw upon my brow

A holier and a gentler cast,

That was too innocent to last.

'Tis strange how thoughts upon a child
Will, like a presence, sometimes press,
And when his pulse is beating wild,
And life itself is in excess,-

When foot and hand, and ear and eye,
Are all with ardour straining high,-
How in his heart will spring

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