ter'd thoughts of yours were buried seeds,
Slow-springing for th' oppress'd and poor, and ripen'd now to deeds?

VII.

Ha, ha! 'twould make a death's-head laugh to see how the cross-bones--
The black judicial formula devised by bloody thrones--
The Axe's edge _this_ way, now _that_, borne before murder'd men,
Who died for aiding their true Liege on mountain and in glen,[38]

VIII.

Are swept like pois'nous spiders' webs for ever from the scene,
Where in their place come crowding now the mighty and the mean;
The Peer walks by the Peasant's side,[39] to see if grace and art
Can touch a bosom clad in frieze, can brighten Labour's heart.

IX.

O! ye who doubt presumptuously that feeling, taste, are given
To all for culture, free as flowers, by an impartial heaven,
Look through this quiet rabble here--doth it not shame to-day
More polish'd mobs to whom we owe our annual squeeze in May?

X.

Mark that poor Maiden, to her Sire interpreting the tale
There pictured of the Loved and Left,[40] until her cheek grows pale:--
Yon crippled Dwarf that sculptured Youth[41] eyeing with glances dim,
Wondering will he, in higher worlds, be tall and straight like him;--

XI.

How well they group with yonder pale but fire-eyed Artisan,
Who just has stopp'd to bid his boys those noble features scan
That sadden us for WILKIE! See! he tells them now the story
Of that once humble lad, and how he won his marble glory.

XII.

Not all alone thou weep'st in stone, poor Lady, o'er thy Chief,[42]
That huge-limb'd Porter, spell-struck there, stands sharer in thy grief.
Pert Cynic, scorn not his amaze; all savage as he seems,
What graceful shapes henceforward may whiten his heart in dreams!

XIII.
A long adieu, dark Years! to you, of war on field and flood,
Battle afar, and mimic war at hone to train our blood--
The ruffian Ring--the goaded Bull--the Lottery's gates of sin--
The _all_ to nurse the outward brute, and starve the soul within!

XIV.

Here lives and breathes around us proof that those all-evil times
Are fled with their decrepit thoughts, their slaughter, and their crimes;
Long stood THIS HALL the type of all could MAN'S grim bonds increase--
Henceforth be it his Vestibule to hope, and light, and peace!

_August_, 1844.