HAMPDEN

Hail, fleet herald

Of tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee,

Beyond the shot of tyranny,

Beyond the webs of that swoln spider.

Beyond the curses, calumnies, and lies

Of atheist priests!

And thou

Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic,
Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm,
Bright as the path to a beloved home,

Oh, light us to the isles of the evening land!
Like floating Edens cradled in the glimmer
Of sunset, through the distant mist of years
Touched by departing hope, they gleam! lone
regions,

Where power's poor dupes and victims yet have never

Propitiated the savage fear of kings

With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose

dew

Is yet unstained with tears of those who wake

To weep each day the wrongs on which it

dawns ;

Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo

Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites Wrest man's free worship, from the God who loves,

To the poor worm who envies us his love! Receive, thou young of Paradise,

These exiles from the old and sinful world!

This glorious clime, this firmament, whose lights

Dart mitigated influence through their veil
Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep

green

The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth;
This vapourous horizon, whose dim round
Is bastioned by the circumfluous sea,
Repelling invasion from the sacred towers,
Presses upon me like a dungeon's grate,
A low dark roof, a damp and narrow wall.
The boundless universe

Becomes a cell too narrow for the soul

That owns no master; while the loathliest ward Of this wide prison, England, is a nest.

Of cradling peace built on the mountain

tops,

To which the eagle spirits of the free, Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn the storm

Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth, Return to brood on thoughts that cannot die And cannot be repelled.

Like eaglets floating in the heaven of time, and shall stoop

They soar above their

quarry,

Through palaces and temples thunder-proof.

SCENE V.

ARCHY

I'll live under the ivy that overgrows the

go

terrace, and count the tears shed on its old

roots as the [wind] plays the song of

"A widow bird sate mourning

Upon a wintry bough."

(Sings)

Heigho! the lark and the owl!

One flies the morning, and one lulls the

night:

Only the nightingale, poor fond soul,

Sings like the fool through darkness and light.

"A widow bird sate mourning for her love

Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

"There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.”

The Triumph of Life