His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel
For all his human brethren-O my God!
It weighs upon the heart, that he must think
What uproar and what strife may now be stirring
This way or that way o'er these silent hills-
Invasion, and the thunder and the shout,
And all the crash of onset; fear and rage,
And undetermined conflict-even now,
Even now, perchance, and in his native isle :
Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun!
We have offended, Oh! my countrymen!
We have offended very grievously,

And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan
of accusation pierces Heaven!
The wretched plead against us; multitudes
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,
Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,
Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth
And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,
And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint
With slow perdition murders the whole man,
His body and his soul! Meanwhile, at home,
All individual dignity and power

Engulfed in courts, committees, institutions,
Associations and societies,

A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting guild,
One benefit-club for mutual flattery,

We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,
Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth;
Contemptuous of all honorable rule,

Yet bartering freedom and the

poor man's life

For gold, as at a market! The sweet words
Of Christian promise, words that even yet

Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,
Are muttered o'er by men, whose tones proclaim
How flat and wearisome they feel their trade :
Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent

To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.
Oh! blasphemous! the book of life is made
A superstitious instrument, on which

We gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break;
For all must swear-all and in every place,
College and wharf, council and justice-court;
All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,
Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,
The rich, the poor, the old man and the young;
All, all make up one scheme of perjury,
That faith doth reel; the very name of God
Sounds like a juggler's charm; and, bold with joy,
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,

Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,

(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas),
Secure from actual warfare, we have loved
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!
Alas! for ages ignorant of all

Its ghastlier workings (famine or blue plague,
Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows),
We, this whole people, have been clamorous
For war and bloodshed; animating sports,
The which we pay for as a thing to talk of,
Spectators and not combatants!
No guess

Anticipative of a wrong unfelt,
No speculation or contingency,

However dim and vague, too vague and dim
To yield a justifying cause; and forth
(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,
And adjurations of the God in Heaven)

We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and
girls,

And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning-meal!
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
From curses, who knows scarcely words enough
To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute

And technical in victories and defeats,
And all our dainty terms for fratricide,

Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues
Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
We join no feeling and attach no form!
As if the soldier died without a wound;
As if the fibres of this godlike frame
Were gored without a pang; as if the wretch,
Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,
Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed!
As though he had no wife to pine for him,
No God to judge him! Therefore, evil days
Are coming on us, O my countrymen !
And what if all-avenging Providence,
Strong and retributive, should make us know
The meaning of our words, force us to feel
The desolation and the agony

Of our fierce doings!

Spare us yet awhile, Father and God! O! spare us yet awhile, Oh! let not English women drag their flight Fainting beneath the burden of their babes, Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday

Laughed at the breast! Sons, brothers, husbands, all

Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms

Which grew up with you round the same fire-side,

And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells
Without the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure !
Stand forth be men! repel an impious foe,
Impious and false, a light yet cruel race,
Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth
With deeds of murder; and still promising
Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free,
Poison life's amities, and cheat the heart
Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes
And all that lifts the spirit! Stand we forth;
Render them back upon the insulted ocean,
And let them toss as idly on its waves

As the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blast
Swept from our shores! And oh! may we return
Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear,
Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung
So fierce a foe to frenzy!

I have told,

O Britons! O my brethren! I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mis-timed;
For never can true courage dwell with them,
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
At their own vices. We have been too long

Dupes of a deep delusion! Some, belike,
Groaning with restless enmity, expect

All change from change of constituted power;
As if a Government had been a robe,

On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged
Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe
Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach
A radical causation to a few

Poor drudges of chastising Providence,
Who borrow all their hues and qualities

From our own folly and rank wickedness,

Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others, meanwhile,

Dote with a mad idolatry; and all
Who will not fall before their images,

And yield them worship, they are enemies
Even of their country!

Such have I been deemed

But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle !

Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,

A husband, and a father! who revere

All bonds of natural love, and find them all
Within the limits of thy rocky shores.

O native Britain! O my Mother Isle !

How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and

holy

To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,

Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,

All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,
All adoration of the God in nature,

All lovely and all honorable things,