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Avaunt-avaunt-what! yield we to your cold
And curdling grasp?-Ye fool us with a power
Which, like the Saga's muttered rhyme of old,
Is built not on your potence, but on our

Weakness. We crown you with grim thoughts,—and quake Before the very tyrants that we make.

Our Reason-or whate'er that be-and how
Begotten or inspired-by which we move
Erect upon life's narrow bridge; and know
Our end—our aims-our powers-alone can prove
Our guide. And Faith, the barter of our will,
Contracting Reason is her offspring still.

And if we err, and darkling grope and vain,
'Tis not our Reason's treachery, but our own
Surrender of our Reason, and the chain

By which we bind her to the Titan's stone.

From ignorance spring earth's errors-raise the powers
Of Reason to their height-and Heaven is ours!

Shadows avaunt!

were all the monsters armed

By hell or monkish madness, round the ring

In which lone Reason sits abstract and charmed;

Yea, all pale Priestcraft from her caves could bring,
Or northern Fancy nurture; were the earth's
Soft smile to wither; and unnatural births

Creep from her hollow womb;—were the sweet skies

B B

To lose all love, and murmur from the stars-

"TREMBLE”—The Unknown within me should defy
Terror-the arch and real fiend that wars

On God; our God is Love!—and greet the levin
Whose wrath but brighter shows the depths of Heaven!

IF THE POOR MADE LAWS FOR THE RICH.

If the poor made laws for the rich-the rich,

What a change in our jails would be!

Which would be for the best? and which-oh, which,

Bring the most to the gallows tree?

They would pass a nobleman vagrant bill,

For the fellows who idly roam;

The Travellers' club would be sent to the Mill,
And Lord Ex be passed to--home.
They'd make game laws for the sporting one,
And refuse a squire to bail;

Old Bks would be shot with a good spring-gun,
And Sh-y would rot in jail!

"Most libellous trash," the books that blind

The eyes of the mass they'd call;

Murray's Review would be damnably fined,

And they'd ruin great Captain H—ll.

They'd make it a capital crime to pay
Oneself from the public purse;

Our younger sons would be shipped to "the Bay,"

And the Bishop of

worse!

371

TO WORDSWORTH.

How glorious and how beautiful a life

Must thine have been among the hills and streams! From the far world, and its eternal strife,

But one grey shadow cast upon thy dreams,
Tinging their sacred and nymph-haunted glory
With something of a mournful-mortal hue.
Ah! if the Spirits of the olden story

Yet linger-and the Ascræan's verse* be true,
If Unseen Habitants, yet earth-bound, rove
By the still brook, or the melodious grove,
And ever o'er Man's state the while they wander,
With a high thought, but tender memory, ponder :-
If the pure ghosts of the Saturnian Race,

Who o'er the sinless pastures led their herds;
Oh! if they yet claim haunt and dwelling-place
Where the air gladdens with the summer birds;
Methinks to them familiar thy sublime

And undiurnal melody which breathes

A pastoral sweetness from the golden time;
And, as o'er ruined fanes the ivy wreathes,

*Hesiod, who tells us (Opera et Dies, verse 121, 'Avτàρ èπeí KEV TOUTO, &c.) that the mortals of the golden age became, after death, good spirits wandering over earth, and regarding the acts of men.

So cling thy fancies in their green embrace
Around a dim and antique holiness;

And, with a loving yet a solemn grace,
At once a freshness and an awe express!

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Musing on Man," amid the mountains lone, What must have past in thy unfathomed breast !— How, on the lyre within, must many a tone,

Solemn and deep, have risen-unconfest,
Save to thyself, and the still ear of GOD!

And from the full and silent Heart of Things,
As o'er the hills thy unwatched footsteps trod,
Didst thou not draw the patriarchal springs
Of love for Man and Nature, which the hues
Of thy transparent verse all livingly suffuse?

Higher thy theme than Cæsars', or the Pomp

Borne o'er the dusty earth in weary gaud; Ambition's mask, and Glory's brazen tromp,

The embattled Murder, and the ermined Fraud !
Sweeter thy theme than aught which thro' the lays
Of the Rose Garden's sons may softly flow!

And earthlier fires before the Rhean blaze
Lit on thine altar-sicken from their glow!

Man in his simple grandeur, which can take

From Power but poor increase; the Truth which lies Upshining in "the Well of homely Life;"

The Winds, the Waters, and their Mysteries

The Morn and moted Noon, the Stars which make
Their mirror in the heart; the Earth all rife
With warnings and with wisdom; the deep lore
Which floateth air-like over lonely places—
These made thy study and thy theme; and o'er
The Beauty of thy Soul no Paphian Graces,
But a religious and a reverent Awe,

Breathed Sanctity and Music-inspiration,
Not from the dark Obscure of priestly law,

But that which burns-the Centre of Creation

A Love, a Mystery, and a Fear—the unseen Source of all worship since the world hath been!

How must thy lone and lofty soul have gone
Exulting on its way, beyond the loud
Self-taunting mockery of the scoffers, grown
Tethered and dull'd to Nature, in the crowd!
Earth has no nobler, no more moral sight,

Than a Great Poet whom the world disowns,
But stills not, neither angers:-from his height,
As from a star, float forth his sphere-like tones:
He wits not whether the vex'd herd may hear
The music wafted to the reverent ear;
And far Man's wrath, or scorn, or heed, above,
Smiles down the calm disdain of his majestic love!

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