THE LITTLE MOLES.

Grub, little moles, grub under ground,
There's sunshine in the sky.

When greedy authors wield the pen

To please the vulgar town,

Depict great thieves as injured men
And heroes of renown

Pander to prejudice unclean,
Apologize for crime,

And daub the vices of the mean

With flattery like slime:

231

For MILTON'S craft- for SHAKSPERE'S tongue

We blush, but yet reply,

Grub, little moles, grub under ground,

There's sunshine in the sky.

When smug philosophers survey

The various climes of earth,

And mourn, poor sagelings of a day!

Its too prolific birth;

And prove by figure, rule, and plan,

The large fair world too small

To feed the multitudes of man

That flourish on its ball:

We view the vineyards on the hills,

Or corn-fields waving high;

Grub, little moles, grub under ground,

There's sunshine in the sky.

When men complain of human kind

In misanthropic mood,

And thinking evil things, grow blind
To presence of the good;

When, walled in prejudices strong,
They urge that evermore

The world is fated to go wrong

For going wrong before:

We feel the truths they cannot feel,

And smile as we reply,

Grub, little moles, grub under ground,

There's sunshine in the sky.

RAILWAYS.

1846.

'No poetry in Railways!' foolish thought
Of a dull brain, to no fine music wrought.
By Mammon dazzled, though the people prize
The gold alone, yet shall not we despise
'The triumphs of our time, or fail to see
Of pregnant mind the fruitful
progeny

Ushering the daylight of the world's new morn.
Look up, ye doubters, be no more forlorn!
Smooth your rough brows, ye little wise: rejoice,
Ye who despond and with exulting voice
Salute, ye earnest spirits of our time,

The young Improvement ripening to her prime,
Who, in the fulness of her genial youth,
Prepares the way for Liberty and Truth,
And breaks the barriers that, since earth began,
Have made mankind the enemy of man.

Lay down your rails, ye nations, near and far-
Yoke your full trains to Steam's triumphal car;
Link town to town; unite in iron bands
The long-estranged and oft-embattled lands.

Peace, mild-eyed Seraph - Knowledge, light divine, Shall send their messengers by every line.

Men, joined in amity, shall wonder long

That Hate had power to lead their fathers wrong;
Or that false Glory lured their hearts astray,
And made it virtuous and sublime to slay.

Blessings on Science! When the earth seem'd old, When Faith grew doting, and the Reason cold, 'Twas she discover'd that the world was young, And taught a language to its lisping tongue : 'Twas she disclosed a future to its view, And made old Knowledge pale before the new.

Blessings on Science! In her dawning hour
Faith knit her brow, alarm'd for ancient power;
Then look'd again upon her face sincere,

Held out her hand, and hail'd her

Sister dear;
And Reason, free as eagle on the wind,
Swoop'd o'er the fallow meadows of the mind,
And, clear of vision, saw what seed would grow
On the hill slopes, or in the vales below;
What in the sunny South, or nipping Nord,
And from her talons dropp'd it as she soar'd.

Blessings on Science, and her handmaid Steam!
They make Utopia only half a dream;
And show the fervent, of capacious souls,
Who watch the ball of Progress as it rolls,
That all as yet completed, or begun,
Is but the dawning that precedes the sun.

THE FERMENTATION.

LONELY sitting, deeply musing,
On a still and starry night,
Full of fancies, when my glances
Turn'd upon those far romances
Scatter'd o'er the Infinite;
On a sudden, broke upon me

Murmurs, rumors, quick and loud,

And, half-waking, I discover'd

An innumerable crowd.

'Mid the uproar of their voices
Scarcely could I hear a word;
There was rushing, there was crushing,
And a sound like music gushing,

And a roar like forests stirr'd

By a fierce wind passing o'er them:
And a voice came now and then,
Louder than them all, exclaiming,
'Give us Justice! we are men!'

And the longer that I listen'd,

More distinctly could I hear,