POEMS
COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR IN THE SUMMER OF 1833
POEMS
XXII DESPOND who will–‘I’ heard a voice exclaim, “Though fierce the assault, and shattered the defence, It cannot be that Britain’s social frame, The glorious work of time and providence, Before a flying season’s rash pretence, Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to shame, When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror’s aim, Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense The cloud is; but brings ‘that’ a day of doom. To Liberty? Her sun is up the while, 10 That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred shone: Then laugh, ye innocent Vales! ye Streams, sweep on, Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume.”