Page:Life of William Blake, Pictor ignotus (Volume 2).djvu/123

106 THE AGONY OF FAITH.

' I s, I see,' the mother said, 'My children will die for lack of bread! What moro has the merciless tyrant said' The monk sat him down on her stony be& His eye was dry, no tear could flow, A hollow groan besl)oke his woe; He trembled and shuddercd upon the bed; At length with a feeble cry he said :- 'When God commanded this hand to write In the shadowy hours of deep midnight, He told me that all I wrote should prove The bane of all that on earth I lova 'My brother starved between two Thy children's crying my soul appals; I mocked at the rack and the grading chaln,m My bent body mocks at their torturing pai 'Thy father drew his sword in the north, With his thousands strong he is marched forth; Thy brother hath armed himself in steel, To revenge the wrongs thy children feel. ' But vain the sword, and vain the bow,-- They never can work war's overthrow; The herinit's prayer and the widow's tear Alone can free the world from fear. 'For a tear is an intellectual thln And a sigh is the sword of an angel i,,g; Anal the bitter groan of a martyrs woe Is an arrow from the Almihty's bow. ' The hand of vengeance found the bed To which the purple tyrant fled; The iron hand crushed the tyrant's head, And became a tyrant in his stead.'