The song of Homer liveth ;
Dead Solon is not dead;
Thy splendid name Pythagoras,

O'er realms of suns is spread!

If Milton's lay could pass from earth,
Heaven's bards that lay might cherish;
And Watt's great deed hath changed a world,
And will not, cannot perish.

157

But Babylon and Memphis

Are letters traced in dust :

Read them, earth's tyrants !-ponder well

The might in which ye trust!
They rose, while all the depths of guilt
Their vain creators sounded:

They fell, because on fraud and force
Their corner-stones were founded.

Truth, Mercy, Knowledge, Justice,
Are powers that ever stand;
They build their temples in the soul,

They work with God's right hand;
Their sword is thought! the minds they teach
Grow daily, hourly wiser;

But Memphian Kings found ignorance

Their true and last adviser!

Then, Trader, Lord, or Yeoman,

If thou a patriot art—

If thou would'st weep to see the light
Of England's name depart,

Her streets blood-flooded, and her plains
In boundless conflagration-
Instruct her poor benighted sons,

And save a sinking nation!

Shall we not lift the lowly,

Whom law and custom ban?

O help us to exalt and praise
God, in the mind of man!
Art thou a Man? Then, haste to aid,
Perchance, a sireless brother!

And in his parent, worn with want,
"O son! behold thy mother!"

Friends of the chain'd in spirit!

Set free our soul-bound slaves !
And a redeemed and thankful world
Shall smile upon your graves;
Age after age shall see your deeds
In useful beauty growing-

Still gathering strength to save and bless-
Like streams to ocean flowing.

Ye too, whose aims are selfish,

Who plough that ye may reap!

Come hither! here for harvest sow,
And give to get and keep!

Bless and be bless'd, thou sordid son,
And thou more sordid father!

Plant gloom with light-and you and yours
A thousandfold shall gather.

Like sunbeams to the moorland,
Or rest to weary woe,

Or silence to the Sabbath hills,

Your names will come and go ! Your worth, like Ewden, lingering Around his hawthorn blossomsOr Stanage beckoning to his cloudsShall live in other bosoms.

HYMN.

LORD! to the rose thy light and air
Impart the glory which they share;
To air's embrace her sweets she owes-
With morn's warm kiss her beauty glows.

Hark! how it floats the vale along!
'Tis music's voice! 'tis Nature's song!
It charms the woods, the rocks, the skies;
And, hark! how echo's soul replies!

The lone flower hears the skylark sing,
And trembles like his raptured wing;
But pays the song that cheer'd and bless'd,
With dewdrops, shed beside his nest.

The wild bird bears the foodful seed
To farthest wilds, where birds would feed;
Lo! food springs up where hunger died,
And beauty clothes the desert wide!

Streams trade with clouds, seas trade with heav'n,

Air trades with light, and is forgiv'n;

While man would make all climes his own,

But chain'd by man, laments alone.

Where torrid climes intensely glow,
Lo, trade buys gold with polar snow!
Then let Bordeaux hire Glasgow's loom,
And in our hearts Gaul's vintage bloom!

Thy winds, O God! are free to blow;
Thy streams are free to chime and flow;
Thy clouds are free to roam the sky;
Let man be free his arts to ply!

The fiends would chain the winds and sea, Who famish men and libel Thee;

Lord! give us hope! O banish fear!

"From every face wipe every tear!"

VOL. II.

THE present, future, past,

What are they, Lord, but Thee?

Thou art, and ever wast,

What hath been and will be.

Thou only seest the sun

To which slow ages tend

And art the Unbegun,

Which is, and cannot end.

The generations gone,

What are they but a word?
All, all that all have done,

Is but thy whisper, Lord,

The deeds which, in old song,
Like stars of morning shine,
Are accents from thy tongue-
Unwritten words of thine,

M