LINES TO A CRITIC.

HONEY from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?

The grass may grow in winter weather,
As soon as hate in me.

Hate men who cant, and men who pray,
And men who rail like thee;

An equal passion to repay,—

They are not coy like me.

Or seek some slave of power and gold,
To be thy dear heart's mate,

Thy love will move that bigot cold,
Sooner than me, thy hate.

A passion like the one I prove

Cannot divided be;

I hate thy want of truth and love,

How should I then hate thee?

LINES

WRITTEN DURING THE CASTLEREAGH ADMINISTRATION.

I.

CORPSES are cold in the tomb;

Stones on the pavement are dumb;
Abortions are dead in the womb,

And their mothers look pale-like the white shore
Of Albion, free no more.

II.

Her sons are as stones in the way

They are masses of senseless clay-
They are trodden, and move not away;

The abortion with which she travaileth

Is Liberty, smitten to death.

III.

Then trample and dance, thou oppressor,
For thy victim is no redressor !

Thou art sole lord and possessor

Of her corpses and clods and abortions-they pave
Thy path to the grave.

IV.

Hear'st thou the festival din

Of Death and Destruction and Sin

And Wealth crying "Havoc !" within ? "Tis the bacchanal triumph which makes Truth dumb, Thine epithalamium.

V.

Ay, marry thy ghastly Wife!

Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife
Spread thy couch in the chamber of Life!
Marry Ruin, thou tyrant! and God be thy guide
To the bed of the bride!

SONG-TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND.

I.

MEN of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

II.

Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat-nay, drink your blood?

III.

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?

IV.

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?

V.

The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.

VI.

Sow seed, but let no tyrant reap;
Find weaith,-let no impostor heap;
Weave robes,-let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear.

VII.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.

Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

VIII.

With plough and spade and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre !

SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819.

I.

As from an ancestral oak

Two empty ravens sound their clarion,
Yell by yell and croak by croak,
When they scent the noonday smoke
Of fresh human carrion:

II.

As two gibbering night-birds flit
From their bowers of deadly hue
Through the night to frighten it,
When the moon is in a fit,

And the stars are none or few:

III.

As a shark and dogfish wait
Under an Atlantic isle

For the negro-ship whose freight

Is the theme of their debate,

Wrinkling their red gills the while

IV.

Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,

Two scorpions under one wet stone,

Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,
Two crows perched on the murrained cattle.
Two vipers tangled into one.

ENGLAND IN 1819.

AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,-
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,—
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.-
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—
An army which liberticide and prey

Make as a two-edged sword to all who wield,-
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,-
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,-
A Senate-time's worst statute unrepealed,-
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.