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THE MEN OF FORTY-EIGHT.

THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD.

Through good and ill, be Ireland's still,
Though sad as theirs your fate;
And true men, be you, men,
Like those of Ninety-eight!

393

JOHN KELLS INGRAM.

WHо fears to speak of Ninety-eight?

Who blushes at the name?

When cowards mock the patriot's fate,
Who hangs his head for shame?
He's all a knave, or half a slave,
Who slights his country thus;
But a true man, like you, man,
Will fill your glass with us.

We drink the memory of the brave,
The faithful and the few-
Some lie far off beyond the wave-
Some sleep in Ireland, too;

All, all are gone-but still lives on
The fame of those who died-
All true men, like you, men,

Remember them with pride.

Some on the shores of distant lands
Their weary hearts have laid,
And by the stranger's heedless hands
Their lonely graves were made;
But, though their clay be far away
Beyond the Atlantic foam-
In true men, like you, men,
Their spirit's still at home.

The dust of some is Irish earth;

Among their own they rest; And the same land that gave them birth

Has caught them to her breast; And we will pray that from their clay Full many a race may start Of true men, like you, men, To act as brave a part.

They rose in dark and evil days
To right their native land;
They kindled here a living blaze
That nothing shall withstand.

Alas! that Might can vanquish Right—

They fell and passed away; But true men, like you, men, Are plenty here to-day.

Then here's their memory-may it be

For us a guiding light,

To cheer our strife for liberty,

And teach us to unite.

THE MEN OF FORTY-EIGHT.

THEY rose in Freedom's rare sunrise,
Like giants roused from wine;
And in their hearts and in their eyes
The god leapt up divine!

Their souls flashed out like naked swords,
Unsheathed for fiery fate;

Strength went like battle with their wordsThe men of Forty-eight;

Hurrah!

For the men of Forty-eight.

Dark days have fallen, yet in the strife
They bate no hope sublime,
And bravely works the exultant life,
Their heart's pulse through the time;
As grass is greenest trodden down,

So suffering makes men great,
And this dark tide shall richly crown
The work of Forty-eight;

Hurrah!
For the men of Forty-eight.

Some in a bloody burial sleep,

Like Greeks to glory gone, But in their steps avengers leap

With their proof-armor on; And hearts beat high with dauntless trust To triumph soon or late,

Though they be mouldering down in dustBrave men of Forty-eight!

Hurrah!

For the men of Forty-eight.

O when the world wakes up to worst
The tyrants once again,

And Freedom's summons-shout shall burst,
Rare music! on the brain,-

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Not high raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate;

SONNETS.

LONDON, 1802,

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour,
England hath need of thee. She is a fen
Of stagnant waters. Altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O, raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the

sea;

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, Not cities proud with spires and turrets So didst thou travel on life's common way

crowned;

Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;

Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.

No:-Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued

In forest, brake, or den,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling rustic tend his plough Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude-O miserable chieftain! where and when

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare

maintain,

Prevent the long-aimed blow,

Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do

thou

Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow. Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left be¦

chain:

These constitute a State;

And sovereign Law, that State's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown,
The fiend, Dissension, like a vapor sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.
Such was this Heaven-loved isle,

Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore!
No more shall freedom smile?

Shall Britons languish, and be men no more?
Since all must life resign,

Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave 'Tis folly to decline,

And steal inglorious to the silent grave.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

hind

Powers that will work for thee-air, earth.

and skies.

There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee. Thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

TO A VERY ILLUSTRIOUS NOBLEMAN. SWEET as the silver voice of victory,

Enlarging the fair glory of a king, Or that lamenting bird, in Summer free, That to the shepherd's thirsty ear doth sing; As sweet as to divining fancy ring The golden axles of the circling sphere, So sweetly in thy praise, on angel's wing,

1

!

ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY.

I mean to soar beyond the solar year; And there, escaped from anguish and from fear, To triumph in the sparkling fount of day, Thy harbinger, that brightly shall appear In that celestial walk; as fair as they Whom Earth, of her heroic race, hath sent, To be her glory, and her argument!

LORD THURLOW.

ON A BUST OF DANTE.
SEE, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim,
The father was of Tuscan song!
There but the burning sense of wrong,
Perpetual care, and scorn, abide-
Small friendship for the lordly throng,
Distrust of all the world beside.

Faithful if this wan image be,
No dream his life was-but a fight;
Could any Beatrice see

A lover in that anchorite?

To that cold Ghibeline's gloomy sight
Who could have guessed the visions came
Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light,
In circles of eternal flame?

The lips as Cumæ's cavern close,

The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin,
The rigid front, almost morose,
But for the patient hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,
Which, through the wavering days of sin
Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

Not wholly such his haggard look

When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed,
With no companion save his book,
To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;
Where, as the Benedictine laid

His palm upon the pilgrim guest,

The single boon for which he prayed

The convent's charity was rest.

Peace dwells not here this rugged face

Betrays no spirit of repose;

The sullen warrior sole we trace,

The marble man of many woes.

395

Such was his mien when first arose
The thought of that strange tale divine-
When hell he peopled with his foes,
The scourge of many a guilty line.

War to the last he waged with all
The tyrant canker-worms of earth;
Baron and duke, in hold and hall,
Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth;
He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of knightly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O, Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou;
That poor, old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other Virgil now.
Before his name the nations bow;
His words are parcel of mankind,
Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
The marks have sunk of Dante's mind.
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS.

ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY.

COME then, tell me, sage divine,
Is it an offence to own
That our bosoms e'er incline

Toward immortal Glory's throne?
For with me nor pomp, nor pleasure,
Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure,
So can fancy's dream rejoice,

So conciliate reason's choice,

As one approving word of her impartial voice.

If to spurn at noble praise

Be the passport to thy heaven,
Follow thou those gloomy ways—
No such law to me was given;
Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me,
Faring like my friends before me;
Nor an holier place desire

Than Timoleon's arms acquire,

And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden

lyre.

MARK AKENSIDE.

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PART VI.

POEMS OF COMEDY.

O! NEVER wear a brow of care, or frown with rueful gravity,
For Wit's the child of Wisdom, and Good Humor is the twin;
No need to play the Pharisee, or groan at man's depravity,
Let ONE man be a good man, and let all be fair within.
Speak sober truths with smiling lips; the bitter wrap in sweetness-
Sound sense in seeming nonsense, as the grain is hid in chaff;
And fear not that the lesson e'er may seem to lack completeness--
A man may say a wise thing, though he say it with a laugh.

"A soft word oft turns wrath aside," (so says the Great Instructor,. A smile disarms resentment, and a jest drives gloom away;

A cheerful laugh to anger is a magical conductor,

The deadly flash averting, quickly changing night to day. Then, is not he the wisest man who rids his brow of wrinkles, Who bears his load with merry heart, and lightens it by halfWhose pleasant tones ring in the ear, as mirthful music tinkles, And whose words are true and telling, though they echo in a laugh!

So temper life's work-weariness with timely relaxation;
Most witless wight of all is he who never plays the fool;
The heart grows gray before the head, when sunk in sad prostration;
Its Winter knows no Christmas, with its glowing log of Yule.
Why weep, faint-hearted and forlorn, when evil comes to try us?
The fount of hope wells ever nigh-'t will cheer us if we quaff;
And, when the gloomy phantom of Despondency stands by us,
Let us, in calm defiance, exorcise it with a laugh!

ANONYMOUS.

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