A Poem by Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care
   A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
                            In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
   Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
                            In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
   Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
                            Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
   Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
                            With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
   Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
                            Tell where I lie.

Complete Analysis of Ode on Solitude

A Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Kind solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my theme
I will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revelled in
I have no time to dote or dream:
You call it hope that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire:
If I can hope O God! I can
Its fount is holier more divine
I would not call thee fool, old man,
But such is not a gift of thine.

Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bowed from its wild pride into shame
O yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame,
The searing glory which hath shone
Amid the Jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again
O craving heart, for the lost flowers
And sunshine of my summer hours!
The undying voice of that dead time,
With its interminable chime,
Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
Upon thy emptiness a knell.

I have not always been as now:
The fevered diadem on my brow
I claimed and won usurpingly
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Caesar this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind,
And a proud spirit which hath striven
Triumphantly with human kind.
On mountain soil I first drew life:
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.

So late from Heaven that dew it fell
(‘Mid dreams of an unholy night)
Upon me with the touch of Hell,
While the red flashing of the light
From clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,
Appeared to my half-closing eye
The pageantry of monarchy;
And the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar
Came hurriedly upon me, telling
Of human battle, where my voice,
My own voice, silly child! was swelling
(O! how my spirit would rejoice,
And leap within me at the cry)
The battle-cry of Victory!

The rain came down upon my head
Unsheltered and the heavy wind
Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
It was but man, I thought, who shed
Laurels upon me: and the rush
The torrent of the chilly air
Gurgled within my ear the crush
Of empires with the captive’s prayer
The hum of suitors and the tone
Of flattery ’round a sovereign’s throne.

My passions, from that hapless hour,
Usurped a tyranny which men
Have deemed since I have reached to power,
My innate nature be it so:
But, father, there lived one who, then,
Then in my boyhood when their fire
Burned with a still intenser glow
(For passion must, with youth, expire)
E’en then who knew this iron heart
In woman’s weakness had a part.

I have no words alas! to tell
The loveliness of loving well!
Nor would I now attempt to trace
The more than beauty of a face
Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
Are shadows on th’ unstable wind:
Thus I remember having dwelt
Some page of early lore upon,
With loitering eye, till I have felt
The letters with their meaning melt
To fantasies with none.

O, she was worthy of all love!
Love as in infancy was mine
‘Twas such as angel minds above
Might envy; her young heart the shrine
On which my every hope and thought
Were incense then a goodly gift,
For they were childish and upright
Pure as her young example taught:
Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
Trust to the fire within, for light?

We grew in age and love together
Roaming the forest, and the wild;
My breast her shield in wintry weather
And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.
And she would mark the opening skies,
I saw no Heaven but in her eyes.
Young Love’s first lesson is the heart:
For ‘mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
When, from our little cares apart,
And laughing at her girlish wiles,
I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,
And pour my spirit out in tears
There was no need to speak the rest
No need to quiet any fears
Of her who asked no reason why,
But turned on me her quiet eye!

Yet more than worthy of the love
My spirit struggled with, and strove
When, on the mountain peak, alone,
Ambition lent it a new tone
I had no being but in thee:
The world, and all it did contain
In the earth the air the sea
Its joy its little lot of pain
That was new pleasure the ideal,
Dim, vanities of dreams by night
And dimmer nothings which were real
(Shadows and a more shadowy light!)
Parted upon their misty wings,
And, so, confusedly, became
Thine image and a name a name!
Two separate yet most intimate things.

I was ambitious have you known
The passion, father? You have not:
A cottager, I marked a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
And murmured at such lowly lot
But, just like any other dream,
Upon the vapor of the dew
My own had past, did not the beam
Of beauty which did while it thro’
The minute the hour the day oppress
My mind with double loveliness.

We walked together on the crown
Of a high mountain which looked down
Afar from its proud natural towers
Of rock and forest, on the hills
The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers
And shouting with a thousand rills.

I spoke to her of power and pride,
But mystically in such guise
That she might deem it nought beside
The moment’s converse; in her eyes
I read, perhaps too carelessly
A mingled feeling with my own
The flush on her bright cheek, to me
Seemed to become a queenly throne
Too well that I should let it be
Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapped myself in grandeur then,
And donned a visionary crown
Yet it was not that Fantasy
Had thrown her mantle over me
But that, among the rabble men,
Lion ambition is chained down
And crouches to a keeper’s hand
Not so in deserts where the grand
The wild the terrible conspire
With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look ’round thee now on Samarcand!
Is she not queen of Earth? her pride
Above all cities? in her hand
Their destinies? in all beside
Of glory which the world hath known
Stands she not nobly and alone?
Falling her veriest stepping-stone
Shall form the pedestal of a throne
And who her sovereign? Timour he
Whom the astonished people saw
Striding o’er empires haughtily
A diademed outlaw!

O, human love! thou spirit given,
On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
Which fall’st into the soul like rain
Upon the Siroc-withered plain,
And, failing in thy power to bless,
But leav’st the heart a wilderness!
Idea! which bindest life around
With music of so strange a sound
And beauty of so wild a birth
Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see
No cliff beyond him in the sky,
His pinions were bent droopingly
And homeward turned his softened eye.
‘Twas sunset: When the sun will part
There comes a sullenness of heart
To him who still would look upon
The glory of the summer sun.
That soul will hate the ev’ning mist
So often lovely, and will list
To the sound of the coming darkness (known
To those whose spirits hearken) as one
Who, in a dream of night, would fly,
But cannot, from a danger nigh.

What tho’ the moon tho’ the white moon
Shed all the splendor of her noon,
Her smile is chilly and her beam,
In that time of dreariness, will seem
(So like you gather in your breath)
A portrait taken after death.
And boyhood is a summer sun
Whose waning is the dreariest one
For all we live to know is known,
And all we seek to keep hath flown
Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
With the noon-day beauty which is all.
I reached my home my home no more
For all had flown who made it so.
I passed from out its mossy door,
And, tho’ my tread was soft and low,
A voice came from the threshold stone
Of one whom I had earlier known
O, I defy thee, Hell, to show
On beds of fire that burn below,
An humbler heart a deeper woe.

Father, I firmly do believe
I know for Death who comes for me
From regions of the blest afar,
Where there is nothing to deceive,
Hath left his iron gate ajar.
And rays of truth you cannot see
Are flashing thro’ Eternity
I do believe that Eblis hath
A snare in every human path
Else how, when in the holy grove
I wandered of the idol, Love,
Who daily scents his snowy wings
With incense of burnt-offerings
From the most unpolluted things,
Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
Above with trellised rays from Heaven
No mote may shun no tiniest fly
The light’ning of his eagle eye
How was it that Ambition crept,
Unseen, amid the revels there,
Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
In the tangles of Love’s very hair?

“Tamerlane” is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe that follows a fictionalized accounting of the life of a Turkic conqueror historically known as Tamerlane. (see more)

A Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Helen, thy beauty is to me
   Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
   The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
   To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
   Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
   To the glory that was Greece,      
   And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
   How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
   Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
   Are Holy-Land!

“To Helen” is the first of two poems to carry that name written by Edgar Allan Poe. (see more)

A Poem by Lucian B. Watkins

O! my heart now feels so cheerful as I go with footsteps light
      In the daily toil of my dear home; 
And I’ll tell to you the secret that now makes my life so bright—
      There’s a flower at my window in full bloom. 

It is radiant in the sunshine, and so cheerful after rain; 
        And it wafts upon the air its sweet perfume. 
It is very, very lovely! May its beauties never wane—
        This dear flower at my window in full bloom. 

Nature has so clothed it in such glorious array, 
      And it does so cheer our home, and hearts illume; 
Its dear mem’ry I will cherish though the flower fade away—
      This dear flower at my window in full bloom. 

Oft I gaze upon this flower with its blossoms pure and white. 
        And I think as I behold its gay costume, 
While through life we all are passing may our lives be always bright 
        Like this flower at my window in full bloom.

A Poem by Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan

What motley cares Corilla’s mind perplex,
Whom maids and metaphors conspire to vex!
In studious dishabille behold her sit,
A lettered gossip and a household wit;
At once invoking, though for different views,
Her gods, her cook, her milliner and muse.
Round her strewed room a frippery chaos lies,
A checkered wreck of notable and wise,
Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass,
Oppress the toilet and obscure the glass;
Unfinished here an epigram is laid,
And there a mantua-maker’s bill unpaid.
There new-born plays foretaste the town’s applause,
There dormant patterns pine for future gauze.
A moral essay now is all her care,
A satire next, and then a bill of fare.
A scene she now projects, and now a dish;
Here Act the First, and here, Remove with Fish.
Now, while this eye in a fine frenzy rolls,
That soberly casts up a bill for coals;
Black pins and daggers in one leaf she sticks,
And tears, and threads, and bowls, and thimbles mix.

A Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere –
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir –
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through and alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul –
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll –
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole –
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere –
Our memories were treacherous and sere, –
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) –
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here) –
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn –
As the star-dials hinted of morn –
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn –
Astarte’s bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said: “She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs –
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies –
To the Lethean peace of the skies –
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes –
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes.”

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: “Sadly this star I mistrust –
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Ah, hasten! -ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -let us fly! -for we must.”
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust –
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust –
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied: “This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendour is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty tonight! –
See! -it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright –
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.”

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom –
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb –
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said: “What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?”
She replied: “Ulalume -Ulalume –
‘Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere –
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: “It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed -I journeyed down here! –
That I brought a dread burden down here –
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber –
This misty mid region of Weir –
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”

“Ulalume” (/ˈuːləluːm/) is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1847. (see more)

A Poem by Walt Whitman

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mother’s laps,
And here you are the mother’s laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Analysis of A Child Said, What Is The Grass?

A Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
    As I lay asleep in Italy
    There came a voice from over the Sea,
    And with great power it forth led me
    To walk in the visions of Poesy.

    2.
    I met Murder on the way –
    He had a mask like Castlereagh –
    Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
    Seven blood-hounds followed him:

    3.
    All were fat; and well they might
    Be in admirable plight,
    For one by one, and two by two,
    He tossed them human hearts to chew
    Which from his wide cloak he drew.

    4.
    Next came Fraud, and he had on,
    Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
    His big tears, for he wept well,
    Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

    5.
    And the little children, who
    Round his feet played to and fro,
    Thinking every tear a gem,
    Had their brains knocked out by them.

    6.
    Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
    And the shadows of the night,
    Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
    On a crocodile rode by.

    7.
    And many more Destructions played
    In this ghastly masquerade,
    All disguised, even to the eyes,
    Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

    8.
    Last came Anarchy: he rode
    On a white horse, splashed with blood;
    He was pale even to the lips,
    Like Death in the Apocalypse.

    9.
    And he wore a kingly crown;
    And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
    On his brow this mark I saw –
    ‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!’

    10.
    With a pace stately and fast,
    Over English land he passed,
    Trampling to a mire of blood
    The adoring multitude.

    11.
    And a mighty troop around,
    With their trampling shook the ground,
    Waving each a bloody sword,
    For the service of their Lord.

    12.
    And with glorious triumph, they
    Rode through England proud and gay,
    Drunk as with intoxication
    Of the wine of desolation.

    13.
    O’er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
    Passed the Pageant swift and free,
    Tearing up, and trampling down;
    Till they came to London town.

    14.
    And each dweller, panic-stricken,
    Felt his heart with terror sicken
    Hearing the tempestuous cry
    Of the triumph of Anarchy.

    15.
    For with pomp to meet him came,
    Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
    The hired murderers, who did sing
    ‘Thou art God, and Law, and King.

    16.
    ‘We have waited, weak and lone
    For thy coming, Mighty One!
    Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
    Give us glory, and blood, and gold.’

    17.
    Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
    To the earth their pale brows bowed;
    Like a bad prayer not over loud,
    Whispering – ‘Thou art Law and God.’ –

    18.
    Then all cried with one accord,
    ‘Thou art King, and God, and Lord;
    Anarchy, to thee we bow,
    Be thy name made holy now!’

    19.
    And Anarchy, the Skeleton,
    Bowed and grinned to every one,
    As well as if his education
    Had cost ten millions to the nation.

    20.
    For he knew the Palaces
    Of our Kings were rightly his;
    His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
    And the gold-inwoven robe.

    21.
    So he sent his slaves before
    To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
    And was proceeding with intent
    To meet his pensioned Parliament

    22.
    When one fled past, a maniac maid,
    And her name was Hope, she said:
    But she looked more like Despair,
    And she cried out in the air:

    23.
    ‘My father Time is weak and gray
    With waiting for a better day;
    See how idiot-like he stands,
    Fumbling with his palsied hands!

    24.
    ‘He has had child after child,
    And the dust of death is piled
    Over every one but me –
    Misery, oh, Misery!’

    25.
    Then she lay down in the street,
    Right before the horses’ feet,
    Expecting, with a patient eye,
    Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

    26.
    When between her and her foes
    A mist, a light, an image rose,
    Small at first, and weak, and frail
    Like the vapour of a vale:

    27.
    Till as clouds grow on the blast,
    Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
    And glare with lightnings as they fly,
    And speak in thunder to the sky,

    28.
    It grew – a Shape arrayed in mail
    Brighter than the viper’s scale,
    And upborne on wings whose grain
    Was as the light of sunny rain.

    29.
    On its helm, seen far away,
    A planet, like the Morning’s, lay;
    And those plumes its light rained through
    Like a shower of crimson dew.

    30.
    With step as soft as wind it passed
    O’er the heads of men – so fast
    That they knew the presence there,
    And looked, – but all was empty air.

    31.
    As flowers beneath May’s footstep waken,
    As stars from Night’s loose hair are shaken,
    As waves arise when loud winds call,
    Thoughts sprung where’er that step did fall.

    32.
    And the prostrate multitude
    Looked – and ankle-deep in blood,
    Hope, that maiden most serene,
    Was walking with a quiet mien:

    33.
    And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
    Lay dead earth upon the earth;
    The Horse of Death tameless as wind
    Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
    To dust the murderers thronged behind.

    34.
    A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
    A sense awakening and yet tender
    Was heard and felt – and at its close
    These words of joy and fear arose

    35.
    As if their own indignant Earth
    Which gave the sons of England birth
    Had felt their blood upon her brow,
    And shuddering with a mother’s throe

    36.
    Had turned every drop of blood
    By which her face had been bedewed
    To an accent unwithstood, –
    As if her heart had cried aloud:

    37.
    ‘Men of England, heirs of Glory,
    Heroes of unwritten story,
    Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
    Hopes of her, and one another;

    38.
    ‘Rise like Lions after slumber
    In unvanquishable number,
    Shake your chains to earth like dew
    Which in sleep had fallen on you –
    Ye are many – they are few.

    39.
    ‘What is Freedom? – ye can tell
    That which slavery is, too well –
    For its very name has grown
    To an echo of your own.

    40.
    ”Tis to work and have such pay
    As just keeps life from day to day
    In your limbs, as in a cell
    For the tyrants’ use to dwell,

    41.
    ‘So that ye for them are made
    Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
    With or without your own will bent
    To their defence and nourishment.

    42.
    ”Tis to see your children weak
    With their mothers pine and peak,
    When the winter winds are bleak, –
    They are dying whilst I speak.

    43.
    ”Tis to hunger for such diet
    As the rich man in his riot
    Casts to the fat dogs that lie
    Surfeiting beneath his eye;

    44.
    ”Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
    Take from Toil a thousandfold
    More than e’er its substance could
    In the tyrannies of old.

    45.
    ‘Paper coin – that forgery
    Of the title-deeds, which ye
    Hold to something of the worth
    Of the inheritance of Earth.

    46.
    ”Tis to be a slave in soul
    And to hold no strong control
    Over your own wills, but be
    All that others make of ye.

    47.
    ‘And at length when ye complain
    With a murmur weak and vain
    ‘Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew
    Ride over your wives and you
    Blood is on the grass like dew.

    48.
    ‘Then it is to feel revenge
    Fiercely thirsting to exchange
    Blood for blood – and wrong for wrong –
    Do not thus when ye are strong.

    49.
    ‘Birds find rest, in narrow nest
    When weary of their winged quest;
    Beasts find fare, in woody lair
    When storm and snow are in the air.

    50.
    ‘Asses, swine, have litter spread
    And with fitting food are fed;
    All things have a home but one –
    Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!

    51.
    ‘This is Slavery – savage men,
    Or wild beasts within a den
    Would endure not as ye do –
    But such ills they never knew.

    52.
    ‘What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
    Answer from their living graves
    This demand – tyrants would flee
    Like a dream’s dim imagery:

    53.
    ‘Thou art not, as impostors say,
    A shadow soon to pass away,
    A superstition, and a name
    Echoing from the cave of Fame.

    54.
    ‘For the labourer thou art bread,
    And a comely table spread
    From his daily labour come
    In a neat and happy home.

    55.
    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.

    56.
    ‘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.

    57.
    Thou art Justice – ne’er for gold
    May thy righteous laws be sold
    As laws are in England – thou
    Shield’st alike the high and low.

    58.
    ‘Thou art Wisdom – Freemen never
    Dream that God will damn for ever
    All who think those things untrue
    Of which Priests make such ado.

    59.
    ‘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.

    60.
    ‘What if English toil and blood
    Was poured forth, even as a flood?
    It availed, Oh, Liberty,
    To dim, but not extinguish thee.

    61.
    ‘Thou art Love – the rich have kissed
    Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
    Give their substance to the free
    And through the rough world follow thee,

    62.
    ‘Or 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.

    63.
    ‘Science, Poetry, and Thought
    Are thy lamps; they make the lot
    Of the dwellers in a cot
    So serene, they curse it not.

    64.
    ‘Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
    All that can adorn and bless
    Art thou – let deeds, not words, express
    Thine exceeding loveliness.

    65.
    ‘Let a great Assembly be
    Of the fearless and the free
    On some spot of English ground
    Where the plains stretch wide around.

    66.
    ‘Let the blue sky overhead,
    The green earth on which ye tread,
    All that must eternal be
    Witness the solemnity.

    67.
    ‘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,

    68.
    ‘From the workhouse and the prison
    Where pale as corpses newly risen,
    Women, children, young and old
    Groan for pain, and weep for cold –

    69.
    ‘From the haunts of daily life
    Where is waged the daily strife
    With common wants and common cares
    Which sows the human heart with tares –

    70.
    ‘Lastly from the palaces
    Where the murmur of distress
    Echoes, like the distant sound
    Of a wind alive around

    71.
    ‘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 –

    72.
    ‘Ye who suffer woes untold,
    Or to feel, or to behold
    Your lost country bought and sold
    With a price of blood and gold –

    73.
    ‘Let a vast assembly be,
    And with great solemnity
    Declare with measured words that ye
    Are, as God has made ye, free –

    74.
    ‘Be your strong and simple words
    Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
    And wide as targes let them be,
    With their shade to cover ye.

    75.
    ‘Let the tyrants pour around
    With a quick and startling sound,
    Like the loosening of a sea,
    Troops of armed emblazonry.

    76.
    ‘Let the charged artillery drive
    Till the dead air seems alive
    With the clash of clanging wheels,
    And the tramp of horses’ heels.

    77.
    ‘Let the fixed bayonet
    Gleam with sharp desire to wet
    Its bright point in English blood
    Looking keen as one for food.

    78.
    Let the horsemen’s scimitars
    Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
    Thirsting to eclipse their burning
    In a sea of death and mourning.

    79.
    ‘Stand ye calm and resolute,
    Like a forest close and mute,
    With folded arms and looks which are
    Weapons of unvanquished war,

    80.
    ‘And let Panic, who outspeeds
    The career of armed steeds
    Pass, a disregarded shade
    Through your phalanx undismayed.

    81.
    ‘Let the laws of your own land,
    Good or ill, between ye stand
    Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
    Arbiters of the dispute,

    82.
    ‘The old laws of England – they
    Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
    Children of a wiser day;
    And whose solemn voice must be
    Thine own echo – Liberty!

    83.
    ‘On those who first should violate
    Such sacred heralds in their state
    Rest the blood that must ensue,
    And it will not rest on you.

    84.
    ‘And if then the tyrants dare
    Let them ride among you there,
    Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, –
    What they like, that let them do.

    85.
    ‘With folded arms and steady eyes,
    And little fear, and less surprise,
    Look upon them as they slay
    Till their rage has died away.

    86.
    Then they will return with shame
    To the place from which they came,
    And the blood thus shed will speak
    In hot blushes on their cheek.

    87.
    ‘Every woman in the land
    Will point at them as they stand –
    They will hardly dare to greet
    Their acquaintance in the street.

    88.
    ‘And the bold, true warriors
    Who have hugged Danger in wars
    Will turn to those who would be free,
    Ashamed of such base company.

    89.
    ‘And that slaughter to the Nation
    Shall steam up like inspiration,
    Eloquent, oracular;
    A volcano heard afar.

    90.
    ‘And these words shall then become
    Like Oppression’s thundered doom
    Ringing through each heart and brain,
    Heard again – again – again –

    91.
    ‘Rise like Lions after slumber
    In unvanquishable number –
    Shake your chains to earth like dew
    Which in sleep had fallen on you –
    Ye are many – they are few.’

Background and analysis of The Masque of Anarchy (or The Mask of Anarchy)