OLD OPINIONS.

Those to live upon the fatness,

These the starvlings, lank and wan. Old opinions! rags and tatters!

Get you gone! get you gone!

Once we thought that Kings were holy,
Doing wrong by right divine;

That the Church was Lord of Conscience,
Despot over Mine and Thine:
That whatever priests commanded,

No one could reject and live;
And that all who differ'd from them
It was error to forgive,
Right to send to stake or halter

With eternal malison.

Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

Once we thought that holy Freedom
Was a curs'd and tainted thing;
Foe of Peace and Law and Virtue;
Foe of Magistrate and King;
That all vile degraded passion
Ever follow'd in her path;
Lust and Plunder, War and Rapine,
Tears, and Anarchy, and Wrath ;
That the angel was a cruel,

Haughty, blood-stain'd Amazon.
Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

211

Once we thought it right to foster
Local jealousies and pride;
Right to hate another nation
Parted from us by a tide;
Right to go to war for glory,
Or extension of domain;
Right, through fear of foreign rivals,
To refuse the needful grain;
Right to bar it out till Famine
Drew the bolt with fingers wan.
Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

Once we thought that Education
Was a luxury for the few;
That to give it to the many
Was to give it scope undue ;
That 'twas foolish to imagine
It could be as free as air,
Common as the glorious sunshine
To the child of want and care;
That the poor man, educated,
Quarrel'd with his toil anon.
Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

Old opinions, rags and tatters;

Ye are worn ;-ah, quite threadbare !

We must cast you off for ever;

We are wiser than we were: Never fitting, always cramping, Letting in the wind and sleet,

OLD OPINIONS.

Chilling us with rheums and agues,
Or inflaming us with heat.
We have found a mental raiment
Purer, whiter to put on.

Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

213

DAILY WORK.

1846.

WHO lags for dread of daily work,
And his appointed task would shirk,
Commits a folly and a crime;

A soulless slave

a paltry knave -
A clog upon the wheels of Time.
With work to do, and store of health,
The man's unworthy to be free,
Who will not give, that he may live,
His daily toil for daily fee.

No! Let us work! We only ask
Reward proportioned to our task:-
We have no quarrel with the great;

No feud with rank—with mill or bank

No envy of a lord's estate.

If we can earn sufficient store

To satisfy our daily need;

And can retain, for age and pain,

A fraction, we are rich indeed.

No dread of toil have we or ours;

We know our worth, and weigh our powers;

DAILY WORK.

The more we work the more we win:
Success to Trade! Success to Spade!
And to the corn that's coming in!
And joy to him, who o'er his task
Remembers toil is Nature's plan;

Who, working, thinks-and never sinks
His independence as a man.

Who only asks for humblest wealth,
Enough for competence and health;
And leisure, when his work is done,
To read his book by chimney nook,
Or stroll at setting of the sun.

Who toils as every man should toil

For fair reward, erect and free:

These are the men- the best of men

These are the men we mean to be!

215