ON THE OPENING OF THE FIRST PUBLIC PLEASURE-GROUND AT BIRMINGHAM,

AUGUST, 1856.

I.

SOLDIERS of Industry! come forth :
Knights of the Iron Hand!

Past is the menace of the North

That frowned upon our land.
We have no will to count the cost,
No thought of what we bore

Now the last warrior's gaze has lost
The doomed Crimean shore !

II.

That shore, so precious in the graves
Of those whose lustrous deeds
Consecrate Balaklava's waves,

And Alma's flowe'ring reeds;
Where, at some future festival,
Our Russian foe will tell,
How British wrestlers, every fall,

Rose stronger than they fell.

III.

Now town and hamlet cheer to see Each bronzed and bearded man, Or murmur low, "'Twas such as he, Who died at the Redan!"

Rest for his worn or crippled frame, Rest for his anxious eye,—

Rest, even from the noise of Fame, A Nation's welcome-cry!

IV.

But Ye,-whose resolute intents
And sturdy arms combine

To bend the' obdurate elements
Of Earth to Man's design-
Ye, to your hot and constant task

Heroically true,

Soldiers of Industry! we ask,

"Is there no Peace for you?"

V.

It may not be the' unpausing march
Of toil must still be yours-
Conquest, with no triumphant arch,
Unsung by Troubadours :

Yet, as the fiercest Knights of old
To give "God's Truce" agreed,
Cry ye, who are as brave and bold,

"God's Truce" in Labour's need.

VI.

"God's Truce" be their device, who meet

To-day with generous zeal

To work, by many a graceful feat,
Their brethren's future weal;

From stifling street and popu'lous mart
To guard this ample room,

For honest pleasures kept apart,

And deck'd with green and bloom.

VII.

Here let the eye to toil minute
Condemned, with joy behold.

The fresh enchantment of each suit
That clothes the common mould :
Here let the arm whose skilful force
Controuls such mighty powers,
Direct the infant's totte'ring course
Amid the fragrant bowers.

VIII.

Yet all in vain this happy hope,
In vain this friendly care,
Unless of loftier life the scope
In every mind be there :
In vain the fairest, brightest, scene,
If passion's sensual haze

And clouded spirits lie between

To mar the moral gaze.

IX.

He only at the marriage-feast

Of Nature and of God

Sits worthily who sits released

From sin's and sorrow's load:

And then, on his poor window-sill,
One flower more pleasure brings
Than all the gorgeous plants that fill
The restless halls of kings.

X.

All Nature answers in the tone

In which she is addressed:

Beneath Mont Blanc's illumined throne,

The peasant walks unblessed; The' Italian struggles in his bonds,

Beside his glorious sea,

And Beauty from all sight absconds

Which is not wise and free.

XI..

So, Friends! while gentle Arts are wed
To frame your perfect plan,
Broadcast be Truth and Knowledge spread

O'er this rich soil of Man!

Ideal parks-ideal shade—

Lay out with libe'ral hand

But teach the souls you strive to aid

To feel and understand.

WORKMAN'S CHORAL SONG.

SUNG AT THE OPENING OF THE DUTCH INTERNATIONAL

EXHIBITION, AT AMSTERDAM, JULY 15, 1869.

(Paraphrased from the Dutch.)

No monster of Iron on gunpowder fed,

No clangor of Steel, no whizzing of Lead,

Make the blood in our arteries tingle;

But the whirl of the wheel, and the whistle of steam,
And the bubbling hiss of the seething stream,
Are the sounds where our sympathies mingle.

No Laurel that drips with the blood of the brave,
No crown that hangs over the conqueror's grave,
No wreath that is woven in weeping-

The Olive that circles the forehead of toil,
The meed of the master of metal and soil,
Is the fruit that we glory in reaping.

Oh! the roar and the foam of the fiery stream!
Oh! the rush and the shriek of the bursting steam!

No warrior's clarion is louder;

We, too, have our iron, our steel, and our lead,

But ours is living and theirs is dead,

And the music of Peace is the prouder.