There aint no God!
Coz if there were—
My boy what's under foreign sod
Would be alive, and here:
Instead of which young William Porter
What never listed when he orter—
Has his farm;
And braunges yonder safe away from harm.
Poor lad!—he went—
I can't forgit that night—
While Porter laughed him outer sight;
Now—he is spent:
Porter's all right.
What does he care?
He's thinking of another farm,
Instead of laying in some ditch
He's rich!
And folk'll gallop at his nod.
I say it!
Dost hear me ... Thou?
There aint no God!
'The Night is Dark'
Safe-guarded dwellers in your sea-girt eyrie
How fares the fight?
Terror has crept beneath your ocean wall,
Horror is over-reaching, to appal;
Your sons are menaced by a furnace fiery:
What of the night?
A hundred years have passed at ease
Since last you fought on bended knees;
And joints, unused, grow stiff and old,
And hearts unroused are faint and cold;
Whilst they who own but wealth, their creed,
Stand helpless in the hour of need.
Oh peace-bound nation!
Lapped in rich sloth; untroubled generation!
Know you that races change?
Some dwindle slowly downward in decay,
Unconscious, till the dawning of the day:
At touch of fire we learn how they are faring;
Thrice welcome is the test to nations daring;
To some—how strange!
Our ancient enemy—now brother—
From one Napoleon to another
Has seen his country ebb and flow
And now he holds the sternest foe,
Learning the lesson of strenuous fight
To brace defensive armour tight:
But what of you—old Islanders
So roughly woke?
Has gilded sloth 'mid dreamless calm
Stifled your soul, close wrapped from harm,
In Neptune's cloak?
Or is it but an idle dress,
Thrown off at breath of fearful stress?
Or has it slowly strangled that old oak?