TO LIBERTY.
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Written at the Tomb of Col. Hutchinson, Owthorpe, Nottinghamshire.
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Hail! heaven-born Liberty! I feel thy pow’r
Awakening in my breast, at this lone hour,
As o’er thy martyr’s tomb I fondly bend;
Such holy, fervent ecstasy,
That health, and strength, and life, for thee!
In noble daring I would freely spend.
Who blushes not, to bear the name of Slave,
Let him not venture near this hallow’d grave.
There is a fresh’ning odour round,
Which makes the freeman’s heart to bound
Like summer leaves;—but the blanch’d cheek,
Tyrants and vassals show,—bespeak
A fear is on them, which awakens dread,
As though their step should rouse th’ indignant dead.
NOTES.
[(1)] HENRY IRETON, so well known for his republican principles and the great part he took in the affairs of his country during the dispute between Charles the First and his parliament; and, subsequently to the death of the unfortunate Monarch, for the sway he bore in the councils of Cromwell, was the eldest Son of German Ireton, Esq. of Attenburrow, near Nottingham, and was born in the year 1610. He was entered a Gentleman Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1626; and from his great proficiency in learning, took, so early as 1629, the degree of Bachelor of Arts. From College he removed to the Middle Temple, where he studied the common law; but the civil war breaking out, he quitted his pursuits in that line, to serve in the army, where he made such proficiency in the military art, that some have not scrupled to say, even Cromwell himself learned the rudiments of war from him. He sat in the long Parliament, for Appleby, but at what time he was returned, does not appear quite clear; probably some time between 1640 and 1647. Soon after his going into the army, he married Bridget, eldest daughter of Mr. Oliver Cromwell, afterwards Protector. At the new modelling of the army, in 1645, he was raised to the rank of Commissary General, having rapidly passed through the subordinate degrees of command. He greatly distinguished himself in many actions, particularly at the battle of Naseby, in which, his ardor having led him too far from his men, he was taken prisoner by the Royalists; but, in the confusion which soon after ensued in the king’s army, he made his escape.
[(2)] “When from the grave the Patriot’s limbs are torn,”
After the restoration of Charles the Second, the body of Ireton was removed from its tomb, in Westminster Abbey, where it had been interred with great pomp by direction of Cromwell, and conveyed on a hurdle to Tyburn, upon which it was taken from the coffin and hung on the gibbet from sun-rise to sun-set; the head was then severed from the body and set upon a pole, and the carcase buried under the gallows. Ludlow, speaking of the preceding pompous funeral with which Ireton was honoured, by his father-in-law Cromwell, and in allusion to the subsequent degradation of his body, says, “Ireton would have despised these pomps, having erected for himself a more glorious monument in the hearts of good men, by his affection to his country, his abilities of mind, his impartial justice, his diligence in the public service, and his virtues; which were a far greater honor to his memory, than a dormitory among the ashes of kings; who, for the most part, as they had governed others by their passions, so were they as much governed by them.”
[(3)] “By which thou laid’st the treach’rous Stuart low:”