TO PIUS IX. Let lips of iron and tongues of slaves No wreaths of sad Campagna's flowers But, hateful as that tyrant old, 97 Stand where Rome's blood was freest shed, Mock Heaven with impious thanks, and call Its curses on the patriot dead, Its blessings on the Gaul! Or sit upon thy throne of lies, A poor, mean idol, blood-besmeared, Whom even its worshippers despiseUnhonored, unrevered! Yet, Scandal of the World! from thee And God are false in turn. Earth wearies of them; and the long Not vainly Roman hearts have bled ELLIOTT.11 HANDS off! thou tythe-fat plunderer! play Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust, He knew the locust swarm that cursed On these pale lips, the smothered thought Strong-armed as Thor-a shower of fire God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire- Then let the poor man's horny hands And labor's swart and stalwart bands 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 With fitting dirge from sounding forge, Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds, And axe and sledge are swung, And, timing to their stormy sounds, ICHABOD! There let the peasant's step be heard, No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh Pile up thy tombs of rank and pride, With pomp to nameless worth denied, No part or lot in these we claim; ICHABOD! So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn The glory from his gray hairs gone Revile him not-the Tempter hath And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage, Have lighted up and led his age, Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark 99 Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, Let not the land, once proud of him, Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, But let its humbled sons, instead, A long lament, as for the dead, Of all we loved and honored, nought A fallen angel's pride of thought, All else is gone; from those great eyes When faith is lost, when honor dies, Then, pay the reverence of old days Walk backward, with averted gaze, THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS.12 No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest, Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts The love of man and God, THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS. Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts, Where the long shadows of the fir and pine And the deep heart of many a Norland mine Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands, With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled hands, 101 Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, stray And Beauty smiles, new risen from the spray, Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart resounds; From Malta's temples to the gates of Rome, And where the Alps gird round the Switzer's home Their vast, eternal wall; They paused not by the ruins of old time, They scanned no pictures rare, Nor lingered where the snow-locked mountains climb The cold abyss of air! But unto prisons, where men lay in chains, To kings and courts forgetful of the pains Scattering sweet words, and quiet deeds of good, Along their way, like flowers, |