Call’d the wild man from waste and wold.
And in his hut thy presence stealing,
Roused each familiar household feeling;
And, best of all the happy ties,
The centre of the social band,—
The Instinct of the Fatherland!
United thus—each
helping each,
Brisk work the
countless hands for ever;
For nought its power to strength
can teach,
Like Emulation and Endeavour!
Thus link’d the master
with the man,
Each in his rights
can each revere,
And while they march in freedom’s
van,
Scorn the lewd
rout that dogs the rear!
To freemen labour is renown!
Who works—gives
blessings and commands;
Kings glory in the orb and
crown—
Be ours the glory
of our hands.
Long in these walls—long
may we greet
Your footfalls, Peace and
concord sweet!
Distant the day, Oh! distant
far,
When the rude hordes of trampling
War
Shall scare the
silent vale;
And where,
Now the sweet
heaven when day doth leave
The air;
Limns its soft
rose-hues on the veil of Eve;
Shall the fierce war-brand
tossing in the gale,
From town and hamlet shake
the horrent glare!
* * * * *
Now, its destined
task fulfill’d,
Asunder
break the prison-mould;
Let the goodly
Bell we build,
Eye
and heart alike behold.
The
hammer down heave,
Till
the cover it cleave.
For the Bell to rise up to
the freedom of day,
Destruction must seize on
the shape of the clay.
To break the mould, the master
may,
If skilled the
hand and ripe the hour;
But woe, when on its fiery
way
The metal seeks
itself to pour.
Frantic and blind, with thunder-knell,
Exploding from
its shattered home,
And glaring forth, as from
a hell,
Behold the red
Destruction come!
When rages strength that has
no reason,
There breaks the mould
before the season;
When numbers burst what bound
before,
Woe to the State that thrives
no more!
Yea, woe, when in the City’s
heart,
The latent spark
to flame is blown;
And Millions from their silence
start,
To claim, without
a guide, their own!
Discordant howls the warning
Bell,
Proclaiming discord
wide and far,
And, born but things of peace
to tell,
Becomes the ghastliest
voice of war:
“Freedom! Equality!”—to
blood,
Rush the roused
people at the sound!
Through street, hall, palace,
roars the flood,
And banded murder
closes round!
The hyaena-shapes, that women
were!
Jest with the
horrors they survey;
They hound—they
rend—they mangle there—
As panthers with