The

poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain ; The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates Man's hope lies quenched;—and, lo! with steadfast gain

Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.

Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross
Make up the groaning record of the past;
But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss,

And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last.

No power can die that ever wrought for Truth;
Thereby a law of Nature it became,

And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth,
When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone;
The better part of thee is with us still;
Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown,
And only freer wrestles with the Ill.

Thou livest in the life of all good things;

What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die;

Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly.

And often, from that other world, on this

Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine,

To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss,

And clothe the Right with lustre more divine.

Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere
Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks,

And strength, to perfect what it dreamed of here
Is all the crown and glory that it asks.

For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room
For love and pity, and for helpful deeds;
Else were our summons thither but a doom
To life more vain than this in clayey weeds.

From off the starry mountain-peak of song,
Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time,
An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong,
A race revering its own soul sublime.

What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may

come,

Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed.

Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand
Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning, too;
Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand,
Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue :

When that day comes, O, may this hand grow cold,
Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right;
O, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold

To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight!

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier

Let worthier hands than these thy wreath en

twine;

Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,-
For us weep rather thou in calm divine!

TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD.

ANOTHER star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas; Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,What mournful words are these!

O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart,

Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth To teach men what thou art!

His was a spirit that to all thy poor
Was kind as slumber after pain:

Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door
And call him home again?

Freedom needs all her poets: it is they
Who give her aspirations wings,

And to the wiser law of music sway

Her wild imaginings.

Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind; O Love Divine, for 'tis thy will

That gracious natures leave their love behind To work for Freedom still.

Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs,
Let anthems peal for other dead,

Rustling the bannered depth of minster-glooms
With their exulting spread.

His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone,
No lichen shall its lines efface,

He needs these few and simple lines alone
To mark his resting-place :-

"Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee
His claim to memory be obscure,

If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, Go, ask it of the poor."

SONNETS.

I.

TO A. C. L.

THROUGH suffering and sorrow thou hast passed
To show us what a woman true may be:
They have not taken sympathy from thee,
Nor made thee any other than thou wast,
Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast,
Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown,
Upon the air, but keepeth every one

Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last:
So thou hast shed some blooms of gaiety,
But never one of steadfast cheerfulness;
Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity
Robbed thee of any faith in happiness,
But rather cleared thine inner eyes to see
How many simple ways there are to bless.

1840.