L.

"Horses, oxen, have a home,

When from daily toil they come;
Household dogs, when the wind roars,
Find a home within warm doors.

LI.

66 Asses, swine, have litter spread,
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one:
Thou, O Englishman, hast none !

LII.

"This is slavery-savage men, Or wild beasts within a den,

Would endure not as ye

do:

But such ills they never knew.

LIII.

"What art thou, Freedom? O, could slaves

Answer from their living graves

This demand, tyrants would flee

Like a dream's dim imagery.

LIV.

"Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

LV.

"For the labourer thou art bread

And a comely table spread,
From his daily labour come,

In a neat and happy home.

LVI.

"Thou art clothes, and fire, and food For the trampled multitude: No-in countries that are free

Such starvation cannot be,

As in England now we see.

LVII.

"To the rich thou art a check;
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

LVIII.

“Thou art Justice-ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold,
As laws are in England :-thou
Shieldest alike the high and low.

LIX.

"Thou art Wisdom-freemen never Dream that God will doom for ever All who think those things untrue, Of which priests make such ado.

LX.

"Thou art Peace-never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be,
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

LXI.

"What if English toil and blood Was poured forth, even as a flood? It availed,-O Liberty!

To dim-but not extinguish thee.

LXII.

"Thou art Love-the rich have kist

Thy feet; and like him following Christ,
Given their substance to the free,

And through the rough world followed thee.

LXIII.

"O turn their wealth to arms, and make

War for thy beloved sake

On wealth and war and fraud, whence they Drew the power which is their prey.

LXIV.

"Science, and Poetry, and Thought, Are thy lamps; they make the lot Of the dwellers in a cot

Such, they curse their Maker not.

LXV.

"Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,

All that can adorn and bless,

Art thou let deeds, not words, express Thine exceeding loveliness.

LXVI.

"Let a great assembly be

Of the fearless and the free,

On some spot of English ground,

Where the plains stretch wide around.

LXVII.

"Let the blue sky overhead,

The green earth on which

All that must eternal be,

Witness the solemnity.

LXVIII.

ye

tread,

"From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast:
From every hut, village, and town,
Where those who live and suffer, moan
For others' misery, or their own:

LXIX.

"From the workhouse and the prison,
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young, and old,
Groan for pain, and weep for cold:

LXX.

"From the haunts of daily life,

Where is waged the daily strife

With common wants and common cares, Which sow the human heart with tares.

LXXI.

"Lastly, from the palaces,

Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind, alive around;

LXXII.

"Those prison-halls of wealth and fashion, Where some few feel such compassion For those who groan, and toil, and wail, As must make their brethren pale:

LXXIII.

"Ye who suffer woes untold,

Or to feel, or to behold

Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold.

LXXIV.

"Let a vast assembly be,

And with great solemnity

Declare with ne'er-said words, that

ye