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The Press! the Press! the Press!

PRESTON MILLS

The day was fair, the cannon roar'd,
Cold blew the bracing north,
And Preston's Mills, by thousands, pour'd
Their little captives forth.

5 All in their best they paced the street,
All glad that they were free;
And sung a song with voices sweet-
They sung of Liberty!

But from their lips the rose had fled,
Like "death-in-life"" they smiled;
And still, as each pass'd by, I said,
Alas! is that a child?

Flags waved, and men-a ghastly crew-
March'd with them, side by side:

15 While, hand in hand, and two by two, They moved a living tide.

Into the petals of the hedge-side rose

5 Day's golden beams and all-embracing

air!

Rise! for the morn of Sabbath riseth fair!

The clouds expect thee-Rise! the stonechat1 hops

Among the mosses of thy granite chair: Go tell the plover, on the mountain tops, 10 That we have cherish'd nests and hidden wings.

Wings? Ay, like those on which the seraph flings,

His sun-bright speed from star to star abroad;

And we have music, like the whisperings Of streams in Heav'n-our labor is an ode

15 Of sweet sad praise to Him who loves the right.

And cannot He who spins the beauteous light,

And weaves the air into the wild flowers' hues,

Give to thy soul the mountain torrent's

Yet why should he who shrieking goes
With millions, from a world of woes,
Reunion seek with it or those?

Alone with God, where no wind blows, 20 And Death, his shadow-doomed, he goes: That God is there the shadow shows.

Oh, shoreless Deep, where no wind blows!
And, thou, oh, Land which no one knows!
That God is All, His shadow shows.

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER ("Barry Cornwall") (1787-1874)

THE SEA 1832

The sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round; 5 It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;

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Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love (oh! how I love) to ride
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
On the fierce foaming bursting tide,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore,
20 But I lov'd the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is to me;
For I was born on the open sea!

25 The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,

And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outery wild 30 As welcomed to life the ocean-child!

I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought, nor sighed for

change;

35 And Death, whenever he come to me. Shall come on the wide unbounded sea!

O'er the deep! O'er the deep!

Where the whale, and the shark, and the
sword-fish sleep,

Outflying the blast and the driving rain,
The petrel telleth her tale-in vain;

25 For the mariner curseth the warning bird Who bringeth him news of the storms unheard!

Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill, Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still:

Yet he ne'er falters:-So, petrel! spring 30 Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!

THE HUNTER'S SONG
1832

Rise! Sleep no more! 'Tis a noble morn:
The dews hang thick on the fringed thorn,
And the frost shrinks back, like a beaten
hound,

Under the steaming, steaming ground. 5 Behold, where the billowy clouds flow by, And leave us alone in the clear gray sky! Our horses are ready and steady.-So, ho! I'm gone, like a dart from the Tartar's bow.

Hark, hark!-Who calleth the maiden
Morn