Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/218

186   On these pale lips, the smothered thought
 * Which England’s millions feel,

A fierce and fearful splendor caught,
 * As from his forge the steel.

Strong-armed as Thor, a shower of fire
 * His smitten anvil flung;

God’s curse, Earth’s wrong, dumb Hunger’s ire,
 * He gave them all a tongue!

Then let the poor man’s horny hands
 * Bear up the mighty dead,

And labor’s swart and stalwart bands
 * Behind as mourners tread.

Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds,
 * Leave rank its minster floor;

Give England’s green and daisied grounds
 * The poet of the poor!

Lay down upon his Sheaf’s green verge
 * That brave old heart of oak,

With fitting dirge from sounding forge,
 * And pall of furnace smoke!

Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds,
 * And axe and sledge are swung,

And, timing to their stormy sounds,
 * His stormy lays are sung.

There let the peasant’s step be heard,
 * The grinder chant his rhyme;

Nor patron’s praise nor dainty word
 * Befits the man or time.

No soft lament nor dreamer’s sigh
 * For him whose words were bread;

The Runic rhyme and spell whereby
 * The foodless poor were fed!

Pile up the tombs of rank and pride,
 * O England, as thou wilt!

With pomp to nameless worth denied,
 * Emblazon titled guilt!

No part or lot in these we claim;
 * But, o’er the sounding wave,

A common right to Elliott’s name,
 * A freehold in his grave!

fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
 * Which once he wore!

The glory from his gray hairs gone
 * Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath
 * A snare for all;

And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
 * Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion’s stormy rage,
 * When he who might

Have lighted up and led his age,
 * Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
 * A bright soul driven,

Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
 * From hope and heaven!

Let not the land once proud of him
 * Insult him now,

Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
 * Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead,
 * From sea to lake,

A long lament, as for the dead,
 * In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught
 * Save power remains;