No anguish of those herds of slaves,

E'er shook one dome or wall asunder, Nor wars of other mighty Kings,

Nor lustrous javelins of the thunder.

One sunny morn a lonely bird,

Passed o'er, and dropt a laurel-seed; The plant sprang up amidst the walls Whose chinks were full of moss and weed.

The laurel tree grew large and strong,
Its roots went searching deeply down;

It split the marble walls of Wrong,

And blossomed o'er the Despot's crown.

And in its boughs a nightingale

Sings to those world-forgotten graves;

And o'er its head a skylark's voice
Consoles the spirits of the slaves.

ABOVE

THE PLOUGH.

A LANDSCAPE IN BERKSHIRE.

yon sombre swell of land

Thou seest the dawn's grave orange hue,

With one pale streak like yellow sand,
And over that a vein of blue.

The air is cold above the woods;
All silent is the earth and sky,
Except with his own lonely moods
The blackbird holds a colloquy.

Over the broad hill creeps a beam,

Like hope that gilds a good man's brow,

And now ascends the nostril-stream

Of stalwart horses come to plough.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

FROM 'DIPSYCHUS.' 15

PART I., SCENE V.

SPIRIT speaks.

'THERE is no God,' the wicked saith, 'And truly it's a blessing,

For what He might have done with us It's better only guessing.'

'There is no God,' a youngster thinks, 'Or really, if there may be,

He surely did n't mean a man

Always to be a baby.'

'There is no God, or if there is,'

The tradesman thinks, ''t were funny

If He should take it ill in me

To make a little money.'

'Whether there be,' the rich man says,

'It matters very little,

For I and mine, thank somebody,

Are not in want of victual.'

Some others, also, to themselves,

Who scarce so much as doubt it,

Think there is none, when they are well,

And do not think about it.

But country folks who live beneath

The shadow of the steeple;

The parson and the parson's wife,

And mostly married people;

Youths green and happy in first love,
So thankful for illusion;

And men caught out in what the world
Calls guilt, in first confusion;

And almost every one when age,
Disease, or sorrows strike him,
Inclines to think there is a God,
Or something very like Him.

FROM PART II., SCENE IV.

DIPSYCHUS speaks.

ACTION, that staggers me.

For I had hoped,

'Midst weakness, indolence, frivolity,
Irresolution, still had hoped; and this
Seems sacrificing hope. Better to wait :
The wise men wait; it is the foolish haste,
And ere the scenes are in the slides would play,
And while the instruments are tuning, dance.
I see Napoleon on the heights intent
To arrest that one brief unit of loose time

Which hands high Victory's thread; his marshals fret,
His soldiers clamor low: the very guns

Seem going off of themselves; the cannon strain
Like hell-dogs in the leash. But he, he waits;

And lesser chances and inferior hopes

Meantime go pouring past. Men gnash their teeth; The very faithful have begun to doubt;

But they molest not the calm eye that seeks

'Midst all this huddling silver little worth

The one thin piece that comes, pure gold; he waits.

O me, when the great deed e'en now has broke
Like a man's hand the horizon's level line,
So soon to fill the zenith with rich clouds;

O, in this narrow interspace, this marge,
This list and salvage of a glorious time,

To despair of the great and sell unto the mean!
O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?

Yet if the occasion coming should find us
Undexterous, incapable? In light things
Prove thou the arms thou long'st to glorify,
Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks
Whence come great Nature's Captains. And high deeds
Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight,

But the pell-mell of men. Oh, what and if
E'en now by lingering here I let them slip,
Like an unpractised spyer through a glass,
Still pointing to the blank, too high. And yet,
In dead details to smother vital ends

Which would give life to them; in the deft trick
Of prentice-handling to forget great art,
To base mechanical adroitness yield
The Inspiration and the Hope a slave !
Oh, and to blast that Innocence which, though
Here it may seem a dull unopening bud,
May yet bloom freely in celestial clime!

Were it not better done, then, to keep off

And see, not share, the strife; stand out the waltz
Which fools whirl dizzy in? Is it possible?

Contamination taints the idler first;

And without base compliance, e’en that same

Which buys bold hearts' free course, Earth lends not these

Their pent and miserable standing-room.

Life loves no lookers-on at his great game,

And with boy's malice still delights to turn
The tide of sport upon the sitters-by,

And set observers scampering with their notes.
Oh, it is great to do and know not what,