Each at his door-post all alone,
Heedless of near or distant wars,

Then wake and listen to the moan

Of storm-vexed forests, nodding to the stars-
Or hear, far off, the melancholy roar

Of billows, white with wrath, battling against the shore.

il.

Deep on their troubled souls the shadow lies;
And in that shadow come and go-

While fitful lightnings write upon the skies,
And mystic voices chant the coming woe-
Titanic phantoms swathed in mist and flame,
The mighty ghosts of things without a name,
Mingling with forms more palpably defined,
That whirl and dance like leaves upon the wind;
Who marshal in array their arrowy hosts,
And rush to battle in a cloud-like land;
Thick phalanxed on those far aërial coasts,
As swarms of locusts plaguing Samarcand.
“Oh, who would live," they cry, "in time like this!
A time of conflict fierce, and trouble strange;
When Old and New, over a dark abyss,
Fight the great battle of relentless Change?"
And still before their eyes discrowned kings,
Desolate chiefs, and aged priests forlorn,
Flit by-confused--with all incongruous things,
Swooping in rise and fall on ponderous wings;

While here and there, amid a golden light,
Angelic faces, sweet as summer morn,

Gleam for an instant ere extinguished quite,

Or change to stony skulls, and spectres livid white.

III.

I hear

But not to me-oh! not to me appear
Eternal glooms. I see a brighter sky,
I feel the healthful motion of the sphere;
And, lying down upon the grass,
Far, far away, yet drawing near,
A low sweet sound of ringing melody:
I see the swift-winged arrows fly;

I

see the battle and the combatants;

I know the cause for which their weapons flash;

I hear the martial music and the chants,

The shock of hosts, the armour clash

As Thought meets Thought;-but far beyond I see, Adown the abysses of the time to be,

The well-won victory of Right;

The laying down of useless swords and spears;
The reconcilement ardently desired

Of Universal TRUTH with MIGHT,—

Whose long estrangement, filling earth with tears,
Gave every manly heart, divinely fired,
A lingering love, a hope inspired,
To reconcile them, never more to sunder.
Far, far away above the rumbling thunder,

I see the splendour of another day.
Ever since infant Time began

There has been darkness over man:

It rolls and shrivels up! It melts away!

II. THE PROSPECTS OF THE FUTURE.

I.

"FRIEND of the People-if thy soul can see
The dawning splendours of futurity;

If to thy finer sense the truths are clear
Which we behold not, let their light appear.
Show us their outline; manifest to men
The far-off glories hidden from their ken:
Draw back the curtain, that our hearts may
What gloom we quit, and to what light we go!"

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II.

Man of the People-Truth abides its time,
And rolls for ever in a track sublime;

There is no mist or darkness on its way
But of man's placing; an eternal day
Surrounds and follows it; and if mine eyes
Can bear its blaze, and trace its symmetries,
Measure its distance, and its advent wait,
I am no prophet-I but calculate."

know

III.

"Friend of the People-when I look around, I see but sorrows cumbering the ground:

I see the

poor made poorer by the law,
And rulers ruling not by love but awe.
I see the many, ignorant and bad,
Wretched and reckless, and my heart is sad.
The people suffer, self-degraded long :
Where is the remedy to right the wrong?"

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IV.

'Man of the People-sorrow makes thee blind. Look up through tears; be hopeful for mankind.

I

weep not, nor deplore, for I behold

Of the new dawn the purple and the gold ;—
Error is mortal-even while I look

Its basements crumble; knowledge opes a book
In which the child may read the social plan,
And how to remedy the wrongs of man."

V.

"Friend of the People-truth is slow to cast

Falsehood shrouds the past

Its lustre on us.

And dims the present.

6

While preaching peace.

Lo! we fight and slay

We hate, yet daily say,

Blessed is Love.' We are a fearful crowd:

We scorn ourselves, we pander to the proud, More in our Might than in our Right we trust. When shall such evils pass, and men be just ?"

VI.

"Man of the People-they shall surely pass.
Be faith in right thy telescopic glass,

And thou shalt see, e'en as I see, this hour,
War and oppression, hate and lust of power,
Dwindling and dying on the wiser earth,

Which learns to blush that e'er it gave them birth,
And Love and LABOUR pouring from their hands
Incessant plenty o'er the happy lands."

VII.

· Friend of the People-I would fain believe.
Doubt is a pang: but when I look, I grieve
At vast impediments. How shall we smite
The armies of the Wrong, that war with Right?
How shall we share, among the sons of toil,
That none may lack-the corn, the wine, the oil?
Must war ride rampant o'er the world again,
Ere love be law and misery cease to reign?"

VIII.

Man of the People-not on swords and spears Is the reliance of the coming years: Not by the cannon's throat shall Truth proclaim Her mighty mission-not with blood and flame Inscribe her lessons in the book of Time; Her strongest weapons shall be words sublime; Her armies, thoughts; her banners, printed sheets; Her captains, voices crying in the streets.