Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century

by James Richard Joy

September 16th. I hear encouraging things, both of my speech in the House of Commons, and of my suit v. Stocks. The justice of the suit is so manifest that even (so to speak) "my enemies are at peace with me." What man ever lost in the long run by seeking God's honor?

September 19th. Steven wrote to me yesterday, and gave me information that he had at last succeeded in negotiating the delivery of the wretched sweep behind my house in London. I had begun to negotiate, but the master stood out for more money than was fair, and we determined to seek the unnatural father of the boy, and tempt him, by the offer of a gratuitous education. We have done so, and have prospered; and the child will this day be conveyed from his soot-hole to the Union School on Norwood Hill, where, under God's blessing and especial, merciful grace, he will be trained in the knowledge, and love, and faith of our common Lord and only Saviour Jesus Christ. I entertain hopes of the boy; he is described as gentle, and of a sweet disposition; we all know he has suffered, and were eager to rescue him from his temporal and spiritual tyrant. May God, in his unbounded goodness and mercy, accept and defend the child, and train him up to his honor and service, now and forever, through the mediation and love of our dear and blessed Lord!

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN

[Mrs Browning's poem belongs to this epoch and agitation.]

Do you hear the children weeping, Oh, my brothers,
Ere-the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing towards the west;

But the young, young children, Oh, my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the play-time of the others,
In the country of the free.
Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow,
Which is lost in long ago;
The old tree is leafless in the forest,
The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
The old hope is hardest to be lost!

But the young, young children, Oh, my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers
In our happy fatherland?
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy;
"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary,"
"Our young feet," they say, "are very weak;
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-
Our grave-rest is very far to seek;
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold,
And we young ones stand without in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old."

"True," say the children, "it may happen
That we die before our time;
Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen
Like a snowball in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her;
Was no room for any work in the close clay!
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying, 'Get up, little Alice, it is day.'
If you listen by that grave in sun and shower
With your ear down, little Alice never cries;
Could we see her face, be sure we could not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes!
And merry go her moments, lull'd and still'd in
The shroud by the kirk chime.
It is good when it happens," say the children,
"That we die before our time.

Alas! Alas! the children! They are seeking
Death in life, as best to have;
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking
With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city;
Sing out, children, as the thrushes do;
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty,
Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!
For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;
If we car'd for any meadows it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For all day we drag our burden tiring
Through the coal-dark underground;
Or all day we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories round and round.