Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Take now _thy_ turn. We'll on and in, nor need the pealing tromp
(Once wont the lordlings thronging here to usher to the pomp)
To kindle our dull phantasies for yon triumphal show
That lights the roof so high aloof with the whiteness of its glow.
IV.
RED WILLIAM, couldst thou heave aside the marble of the tomb,
And look abroad from Winchester's song-consecrated gloom,[35]
A keener smart than Tyrrel's dart would pierce thy soul to see
In thy vast courts the Vileinage and peasants treading free.
V.
Oh, righteous retribution! Ye Shades of those who here
Stood up in bonds before the slaves of sceptred fraud and fear!
Unswerving SOMERS!--MORE!--even thou, dark
SOMERSET,[36] who fell
In pride of place condignly, yet who loved the Commons well--
VI.
And Ye who with undaunted hearts, immortal mitred Few!
For Truth's dear sake, the Tyrant foil'd to whom ye still were true--[37]
Rejoice! Who knows what scatter'd thoughts of yours were buried seeds,
Slow-springing for th' oppress'd and poor, and ripen'd now to deeds?
VII.
Ha, ha! 'twould make a death's-head laugh to see how the cross-bones--
The black judicial formula devised by bloody thrones--
The Axe's edge _this_ way, now _that_, borne before murder'd men,
Who died for aiding their true Liege on mountain and in glen,[38]
VIII.
Are swept like pois'nous spiders' webs for ever from the scene,
Where in their place come crowding now the mighty and the mean;
The Peer walks by the Peasant's side,[39] to see if grace and art
Can touch a bosom clad in frieze, can brighten Labour's heart.
IX.
O! ye who doubt presumptuously that feeling, taste, are given
To all for culture, free as flowers, by an impartial heaven,
Look through this quiet rabble here--doth it not shame to-day
More polish'd mobs to whom we owe our annual squeeze in May?
X.
Mark that poor Maiden, to her Sire interpreting the tale
There pictured of the Loved and Left,[40] until her cheek grows pale:--
Yon crippled Dwarf that sculptured Youth[41] eyeing with glances dim,
Wondering will he, in higher worlds, be tall and straight like him;--
XI.
How well they group with yonder pale but fire-eyed Artisan,
Who just has stopp'd to bid his boys those noble features scan
That sadden us for WILKIE! See! he tells them now the story
Of that once humble lad, and how he won his marble glory.
XII.
Not all alone thou weep'st in stone, poor Lady, o'er thy Chief,[42]
That huge-limb'd Porter, spell-struck there, stands sharer in thy grief.
Pert Cynic, scorn not his amaze; all savage as he seems,
What graceful shapes henceforward may whiten his heart in dreams!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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