Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/694

 . 14, 1861.]  —You’ve heard that Hungary’s floor’d? They’ve got her on the ground. A traitor broke her sword: Two despots hold her bound.

Nine gallant gentlemen In Arad they strung up! I work’d in peace till then:— That poison’d all my cup.

Take money for my hire From butchers?—not the man! I’ve got some natural fire, And don’t flash in the pan;—

Said I, ‘The Lord of Hosts Have mercy on your land! I see those dangling ghosts,— And you may keep command,

You carrion Double-Head! I hear them sound a gong In Heaven above!’—I said.

The Bird’s a beastly Bird, And what is more, a fool. I shake hands with the herd That flock beneath his rule.

And rare would be its lot, But that he baulks its powers: It’s just an earthen pot For hearts of oak like ours.

It tingles to your scalps, To think of it, my boys! Confusion on their Alps, And all their baby toys!

And we who worshipp’d crags, Where purple splendours burn’d, Our idol saw in rags, And right about were turn’d.

And heights where morning wakes With one cheek over snow;— And iron-wallèd lakes Where sits the white moon low;—

Wherever Beauty show’d The wonders of her face, This man his Jackass rode, High despot of the place.

And yet we liked him well; We laugh’d with honest hearts:— He shock’d some inner spell, And rous’d discordant parts.

Moreover, could we be To our dear land disloyal? And were not also we Of History’s blood-Royal?

For there a man may view An aspect more sublime Than Alps against the blue:— The morning eyes of Time!

any fine Sunday afternoon, during the year, as we proceed Eastwards down the Mile-End Road, we shall, in all probability, find our progress suddenly arrested by a large assemblage which blockades the pavement in front of us: there is no noise, no bustle, nor confusion; on the contrary, the crowd, despite its density, is quiet and orderly, being attentively engaged in listening to the loud tones, startling metaphors, and extremely ungrammatical language of a street Boanerges, who is perched on his forum, which is represented by a portable pulpit. As he elevates his hands, the fingers appear to be more familiar with the tailor’s thimble, or the shoemaker’s awl, than with aught appertaining to biblical study, yet his demeanour and rude arguments appear to be received with favour by many of his hearers.

Slowly drifting past the crowd and proceeding a little further on, we stop to notice another individual, who, with collar turned down à la Byron, is indulging in a harangue, almost equally vehement, in favour of “Secularism,” to a somewhat scanty audience, which includes one or two simple, honest-featured members of the operative class, who hearken, with a queer puzzled expression, to his explanation of the celebrated “Eshays and Reevoos.”

Occasionally, to attract fresh hearers, the orator spouts a little “Socialism,” and noisily extols its merits, not omitting to wind up with a grandiloquent peroration, in which he invites those around him to attend “the Hall of Science” in the evening, for the purpose of participating in “the rational recreation of reason,” which we afterwards discover to consist of a long, sleep-evoking, dreary lecture on “the philosophical sciences,” followed by a—select ball!

Sometimes the speaker’s place is usurped by a