ning at his pleasure? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us; and by this title we will defend it," said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground and raising the war-sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe; and, depend upon it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection. 4. You have a mighty sway in Asia, which cannot be maintained by the finer sympathies of life, or the practice of its charities and affections. What will they do for you when surrounded by two hundred thousand men with artillery, cavalry, and elephants, calling upon you for their dominions, which you have robbed them of? 5. If England, from a lust of ambition and dominion, will insist on maintaining despotic rule over distant and hostile nations, beyond all comparison more numerous and extended than herself, and gives commission to her viceroys to govern them with no other instruction than to preserve them, and to secure permanently their revenues, with what color of consistency or reason can she place herself in the moral chair, and affect to be shocked at the execution of her own orders; adverting to the exact measure of wickedness and injustice necessary to their execution, and complaining only of the excess as the immorality; considering her authority as a dispensation for breaking the commands of God, and the breach of them as only punishable when contrary to the ordinances of man? 6. Such a proceeding, gentlemen, begets serious reflection It would be better, perhaps, for the masters and the servants of all such governments to join in supplication, that the great Author of violated humanity may not confound them together in one common judgment. LORD ERSKINE. CV. THE HIGH TIDE (ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE, 1571). THE I. HE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, 'Pull, if ye never pulled before! Good ringers, pull your best!" quoth he. Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Ply all your changes, all your swells,Play uppe The Brides of Enderby!'' 6 II. I sat and spun within the doore; My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes; The level sun, like ruddy ore, Lay sinking in the barren skies; And dark against day's golden death III. "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling Floweth, floweth ; From the meads where melick groweth, IV. "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow; Come uppe, Whitefoot; come uppe, Lightfoot, Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,- Come uppe, Whitefoot; come uppe, Lightfoot; Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow, Jetty, to the milking shed." V. Alle fresh the level pasture lay, VI. I looked without, and lo! my sonne Till all the welkin rang again,— "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.) VII. "The olde sea-wall (he cried) is downe; The rising tide comes on apace, And boats adrift in yonder towne Go sailing uppe the market-place.” He shook as one that looks on death: "God save you, mother!" straight he saith; "Where is my wife, Elizabeth?" VIII. "Good sonne, where Lindis winds away, With her two bairns I marked her long; And ere yon bells beganne to play, Afar I heard her milking-song." With that he cried and beat his breast; A mighty eygre* reared his crest, X. So farre, so fast the eygre drave, Sobbed in the grasses at our feet: XI. Upon the roofe we sate that night, I marked the lofty beacon-light Stream from the church-tower, red and high,A lurid mark and dread to see; And awesome bells they were to me, That in the dark rang "Enderby." XII. They rang the sailor lads to guide From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed; And I-my sonne was at my side, And yet the ruddy beacon glowed; And yet he moaned beneath his breath, "O, come in life, or come in death! O, lost! my love, Elizabeth!" * Eygre (a'-gur), an immense tidal wave, XIII. And didst thou visit him no more? Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare; The waters laid thee at his doore, Ere yet the early dawn was clear. Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, The lifted sun shone on thy face, Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place. XIV. That flow strewed wrecks about the grass, To many more than myne and me: XV. I shall never hear her more Where the sunny Lindis floweth, From the meads where melick groweth, Onward floweth to the town. XVI. I shall never see her more Where the reeds and rushes quiver, Stand beside the sobbing river, JEAN INGELOW-abridged. |