huge hive,
  What wonder, if, ill-paid and tired, you hasten
    To follow the loud bauble and the lure,
  Or gird at those who your wild hopes would chasten,
    Or guide you on a pathway more secure! 
  And yet beware!  No oriflamme of battle
    Is that false radiance round yon impish brow. 
  The jester’s bladder-bauble, with its rattle
    Of prisoned peas, is not the tow-row-row
  Of Labour’s true reveille.  Bonnet Phrygian,
    Cap of sham Liberty, the spectre wears;
  But he will plunge to depths of darkness Stygian
    Whom anti-civic Violence ensnares. 
  Plain Justice, honest Hope are good to follow,
    But Insubordination, fierce and blind,
  Mouthing out furious threat or promise hollow. 
    Is the sworn foe of civilised mankind;
  Breaking up ancient bonds of love and duty,
    All social links that bear abiding test,
  With no sound promise of a better beauty,
    A fairer justice, or a truer rest. 
  No; patient Labour, with its long-borne burden
    And guardian Force, with its thrice-noble trust,
  Claim from the State the fullest, freest guerdon,
    And all wise souls, all spirits fair and just,
  Must back the Great Appeal that Time advances,
    And Progress justifies in this our time. 
  But civic Violence, in all circumstances
    Now like to hap, is anti-social crime,
  Foul in its birth and fatal in its issue. 
    Tyrannic act, incendiary speech,
  Recklessly rend the subtly woven tissue
    That binds Society’s organs each to each. 
  Strong Toiler, deft Auxiliar, stalwart Warder,
    Your hour has struck, your tyrants face their doom,
  But let hot haste unsettle temperate order,
    And Hope’s bright disc will feel eclipse’s gloom. 
  This is a lying spirit, sly and sinister,
    Its promise false, its loud incitements vain. 
  Not to your true advantage shall it minister,
    Mere Goblin Gold its glittering show of Gain: 
  Spectre of Chaos and the Abyss, it flutters
    Before you flaunting high its foolish fire,
  But there’s a lie in each loud word it utters,
    And its true goal is Anarchy’s choking mire!

* * * * *

TIME THE AVENGER!

On the 24th of June, 1871, Mr. Punch sang, apropos of the Germans desiring to purchase Heligoland—­

  “Though to rule the waves, we may believe they aspire,
    If their Navy grow great, we must let it;
  But if one British island they think to acquire,
    Bless their hearts, don’t they wish they may get it?”

And they have got it!

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE LYING SPIRIT.]

* * * * *

A GRUMBLE FOR THE GRENADIERS.