THE CHURCHILTA.D.
CJIUItCIIILLES' tongue, to Britain's isles the spring Of troubled omen, Fortune's goddess, sing !
The tongue whose hollow democratic chords Sent Northcote's honoured head to sleep with Lords,.
And even to the island out of reach
Of hope and understanding, banished Beach,—
Prepared with words to breathe, and thoughts to bun; As patriot or demagogue by turn, One day exchanging parley close and bland With cold Parnell and his submissive band, The next, arousing from the seething deep Religious quarrel fondly deemed asleep, And peopling Ulster's faction-harried coasts With fretted forms of internecine ghosts,— Reckless alike in slander or in praise, Contemptuous of the statesman's older ways, Embodiment of Party's bitterest spite, Careless what mud be thrown, so some alight, Unchecked by thought or Modesty's control, And all unmatched in length by breadth of soul,— Tired England, praying to be party-free, Finds, at an hour like this, her hope in thee!
Yes, at an hour like this : when all our best Have longed to lay ignobler strife to rest, And answered to the note which, right or wrong, They thought to Honour's roll-call to belong, Have bowed to contumely, defeat, and loss, Held loaves and fishes but as dust and dross, Left their high leader in their strength of will, For that they held their conscience higher still, And through all crooked byways straitly trod,
Fast to their guns for country and for God,—
This is their one reward ; to see instead Of him who late the Commons' forces led, From error into mock the battle slip, And rash Churchilles ape a leadership !
When most the days crave steadiness of hand, And gravest Wisdom's most assured command, When Hope grew bright at last, before so dim, Find we the new birth realised in him ?
Have all the strife and all the pain been wrought To bring the meed and use of it to naught ?
True lips are silenced with the scoffer's kiss, And harassed England fought and won, for this !
LIBERTUS.
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