Hark! from wasted moor and fen,
Feverous alley, stifling den,
Swells the wail of Saxon men-
Work! or the grave!
Down, down, down and down,
With idler, knave, and tyrant!
Why for sluggards cark and moil?
He that will not live by toil
Has no right on English soil!
God’s word’s our warrant!
Up, up, up and up!
Face your game and play it!
The night is past, behold the sun!
The idols fall, the lie is done!
The Judge is set, the doom begun!
Who shall stay it?
On Torridge, May 1849.
My poor lads are reaping,Busy every one.Curates mind the parish,Sweepers mind the court;We’ll away to SnowdonFor our ten days’ sport;Fish the August eveningTill the eve is past,Whoop like boys, at poundersFairly played and grassed.When they cease to dimple,Lunge, and swerve, and leap,Then up over Siabod,Choose our nest, and sleep.Up a thousand feet, Tom,Round the lion’s…
Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping.Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tressesFrom drooping brows we find her slowly weeping.So many a wife for cruel man’s caressesMust inly pine and pine, yet outward bearA gallant front to this world’s gaudy glare.Ilfracombe, 1849.
3 And call the cattle home4 Across the sands of Dee’;5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam,6 And all alone went she.7 The western tide crept up along the sand,8 And o’er and o’er the sand,9 And round and round the sand,10 As far as eye could see.11 The rolling mist came…
And the merry round moon will be rising soon,For us to go sailing by.’‘Watchman, what of the night?’‘The tide flows in from the sea;There’s water to float a little cockboatWill carry such fishers as we.’‘Watchman, what of the night?’‘The night is a fruitful time;When to many a pair are born children fair,To be christened at…
Rises as her Maker rose.Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,Burst at last from winter snows.Earth with heaven above rejoices;Fields and gardens hail the spring;Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,While the wild birds build and sing.You, to whom your Maker grantedPowers to those sweet birds unknown,Use the craft by God implanted;Use the reason not your own.Here,…
Chilled early by the bigot’s curse,The pedant’s frown, the worldling’s yawn.Fair death, to fall in teeming June,When every seed which drops to earthTakes root, and wins a second birthFrom steaming shower and gleaming moon.Fall warm, fall fast, thou mellow rain;Thou rain of God, make fat the land;That roots which parch in burning sandMay bud to…
