DAY, like our souls, is fiercely dark;
What then? 'Tis day!
We sleep no more; the cock crows—hark!
To arms! away!
They come! they come! the knell is rung
Of us or them;
Wide o'er their march the pomp is flung
Of gold and gem.
What collar'd hound of lawless sway,
To famine dear—
What pension'd slave of Attila,
Leads in the rear?
Come they from Scythian wilds afar,
Our blood to spill?
Wear they the livery of the Czar?
They do his will.
Nor tassell'd silk, nor epaulet,
Nor plume, nor torse—
No splendour gilds, all sternly met,
Our foot and horse.
But, dark and still, we inly glow,
Condensed in ire!
Strike, tawdry slaves, and ye shall know
Our gloom is fire.
In vain your pomp, ye evil powers,
Insults the land;
Wrongs, vengeance, and the Cause are ours,
And God's right hand!
Madmen! they trample into snakes
The wormy clod!
Like fire, beneath their feet awakes
The sword of God!
Behind, before, above, below,
They rouse the brave;
Where'er they go, they make a foe,
Or find a grave.
Ebenezer Elliott. 1781-1849
588. Plaint
DARK, deep, and cold the current flows
Unto the sea where no wind blows,
Seeking the land which no one knows.
O'er its sad gloom still comes and goes
The mingled wail of friends and foes,
Borne to the land which no one knows.
Why shrieks for help yon wretch, who goes
With millions, from a world of woes,
Unto the land which no one knows?
Though myriads go with him who goes,
Alone he goes where no wind blows,
Unto the land which no one knows.
For all must go where no wind blows,
And none can go for him who goes;
None, none return whence no one knows.
Yet why should he who shrieking goes
With millions, from a world of woes,
Reunion seek with it or those?
Alone with God, where no wind blows,
And Death, his shadow—doom'd, he goes.
That God is there the shadow shows.