and Buonaparte is checked before Mantua. Straightways our courtly messenger is commanded
to uncurl his lips, and propose to the lofty Republic to
restore all its conquests, and to suffer England to
retain all hers (at least all her important ones), as
the only terms of Peace, and the ultimatum of the negotiation!
The friends of Freedom in this country are idle. Some are
timid; some are selfish; and many the torpedo torch of
hopelessness has numbed into inactivity. We would fain hope
that (if the above account be accurate — it is only the French
account) this dreadful instance of infatuation in our Ministry
will rouse them to one effort more; and that at one and the
same time in our different great towns the people will be
called on to think solemnly, and declare their thoughts
fearlessly by every method which the remnant of the
Constitution allows.
Aye Memory sits: thy vest profan’d with gore.
Thou with an unimaginable groan
Gav’st reck’ning of thy Hours!
On every Harp on every Tongue
While the mute Enchantment hung:
Like Midnight from a thundercloud
Spake the sudden Spirit loud.
Like Thunder from a Midnight Cloud
Spake the sudden Spirit loud
For ever shall the bloody island scowl?
For ever shall her vast and iron bow
Shoot Famine’s evil arrows o’er the world,
Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below;
Rise, God of Mercy, rise! why sleep thy bolts unhurl’d?
For ever shall the bloody Island scowl?
For aye, unbroken shall her cruel Bow
Shoot Famine’s arrows o’er thy ravaged World?
Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below —
Rise, God of Nature, rise, why sleep thy Bolts unhurl’d?
‘In Europe the smoking villages of Flanders and the
putrified fields of La Vendée — from Africa the unnumbered
victims of a detestable Slave-Trade. In Asia the desolated
plains of Indostan, and the millions whom a rice-contracting
Governor caused to perish. In America the recent enormities of
the Scalp-merchants. The four quarters of the globe groan
beneath the intolerable iniquity of the nation.’
At coward distance, yet with kindling pride —
Safe ‘mid thy herds and cornfields thou hast stood,
And join’d the yell of Famine and of Blood.
All nations curse thee: and with eager wond’ring
1797.
Mid thy Cornfields and Herds thou in plenty hast stood
And join’d the loud yellings of Famine and Blood.
1803.
Stretch’d on the marge of some fire-flashing fount
In the black Chamber of a sulphur’d mount.
In the long sabbath of high self-content.
Cleans’d from the fleshly passions that bedim
In the deep sabbath of blest self-content
Cleans’d from the fears and anguish that bedim
1797.
In the blest sabbath of high self-content
Cleans’d from bedimming Fear, and Anguish weak and blind.
1803.
1797
THE RAVEN
A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOLBOY TO HIS LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS
Underneath an old oak tree
There was of swine a huge company,
That grunted as they crunched the mast:
For that was ripe, and fell full fast.
Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high: 5
One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.
Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:
He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,
Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet. 10
He picked up the acorn and buried it straight
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven go?
He went high and low,
Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go. 15
Many Autumns, many Springs
Travelled he with wandering wings:
Many Summers, many Winters —
I can’t tell half his adventures.
At length he came back, and with him a She, 20
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were happy enow.
But soon came a Woodman in leathern
