“—You’ve heard that Hungary’s floor’d?
They’ve got her on the ground.
A traitor broke her sword:
Two despots hold her bound.
I’ve seen her gasping her last hope:
I’ve seen her sons strung up b’ the rope.
“Nine gallant gentlemen
In Arad they strung up!
I work’d in peace till then:—
That poison’d all my cup.
A smell of corpses haunted me:
My nostril sniff’d like life for sea.
“Take money for my hire
From butchers?—not the man!
I’ve got some natural fire,
And don’t flash in the pan;—
A few ideas I reveal’d:—
’Twas well old England stood my shield!
“Said I, ‘The Lord of Hosts
Have mercy on your land!
I see those dangling ghosts,—
And you may keep command,
And hang, and shoot, and have your day:
They hold your bill, and you must pay.
“‘You’ve sent them where they’re strong,
You carrion Double-Head!
I hear them sound a gong
In Heaven above!’—I said.
My God, what feathers won’t you moult
For this! says I: and then I bolt.
“The Bird’s a beastly Bird,
And what is more, a fool.
I shake hands with the herd
That flock beneath his rule.
They’re kindly; and their land is fine.
I thought it rarer once than mine.
“And rare would be its lot,
But that he baulks its powers:
It’s just an earthen pot
For hearts of oak like ours.
Think! think!—four days from those frontiers,
And I’m a-head full fifty years.
“It tingles to your scalps,
To think of it, my boys!
Confusion on their Alps,
And all their baby toys!
The mountains Britain boasts are men:
And scale you them, my brethren!”
Cluck, went his tongue; his fingers, snap.
Britons were proved all heights to cap.
And we who worshipp’d crags,
Where purple splendours burn’d,
Our idol saw in rags,
And right about were turn’d.
Horizons rich with trembling spires
On violet twilights, lost their fires.
And heights where morning wakes
With one cheek over snow;—
And iron-wallèd lakes
Where sits the white moon low;—
For us on youthful travel bent,
The robing picturesque was rent.
Wherever Beauty show’d
The wonders of her face,
This man his Jackass rode,
High despot of the place.
Fair dreams of our enchanted life,
Fled fast from his shrill island fife.
And yet we liked him well;
We laugh’d with honest hearts:—
He shock’d some inner spell,
And rous’d discordant parts.
We echoed what we half abjured:
And hating, smilingly endured.
Moreover, could we be
To our dear land disloyal?
And were not also we
Of History’s blood-Royal?
We glow’d to think how donkeys graze
In England, thrilling at their brays.
For there a man may view
An aspect more sublime
Than Alps against the blue:—
The morning eyes of Time!
The very Ass participates
The glory Freedom radiates!
UNFASHIONABLE PREACHERS.
On any fine Sunday afternoon, during the year, as we proceed Eastwards down the Mile-End Road, we shall, in all probability, find our progress suddenly arrested by a large assemblage which blockades the pavement in front of us: there is no noise, no bustle, nor confusion; on the contrary, the crowd, despite its density, is quiet and orderly, being attentively engaged in listening to the loud tones, startling metaphors, and extremely ungrammatical language of a street Boanerges, who is perched on his forum, which is represented by a portable pulpit. As he elevates his hands, the fingers appear to be more familiar with the tailor’s thimble, or the shoemaker’s awl, than with aught appertaining to biblical study, yet his demeanour and rude arguments appear to be received with favour by many of his hearers.
Slowly drifting past the crowd and proceeding a little further on, we stop to notice another individual, who, with collar turned down à la Byron, is indulging in a harangue, almost equally vehement, in favour of “Secularism,” to a somewhat scanty audience, which includes one or two simple, honest-featured members of the operative class, who hearken, with a queer puzzled expression, to his explanation of the celebrated “Eshays and Reevoos.”
Occasionally, to attract fresh hearers, the orator spouts a little “Socialism,” and noisily extols its merits, not omitting to wind up with a grandiloquent peroration, in which he invites those around him to attend “the Hall of Science” in the evening, for the purpose of participating in “the rational recreation of reason,” which we afterwards discover to consist of a long, sleep-evoking, dreary lecture on “the philosophical sciences,” followed by a—select ball!
Sometimes the speaker’s place is usurped by a
