A RADICAL WAR SONG

1820

AWAKE, arise, the hour is come,

For rows and revolutions;

There's no receipt like pike and drum

For crazy constitutions.

Close, close the shop! Break, break the loom,
Desert your hearths and furrows,

And throng in arms to seal the doom
Of England's rotten boroughs.

We'll stretch that tort'ring Castlereagh
On his own Dublin rack, sir;
We'll drown the King in Eau de vie,
The Laureate in his sack, sir.

Old Eldon and his sordid hag

In molten gold we'll smother, And stifle in his own green bag The Doctor and his brother.

In chains we 'll hang in fair Guildhall
The City's famed Recorder,

And next on proud St. Stephen's fall,
Though Wynne should squeak to order.

In vain our tyrants then shall try
To 'scape our martial law, sir;
In vain the trembling Speaker cry
That"Strangers must withdraw," sir.

Copley to hang offends no text;
A rat is not a man, sir:

With schedules and with tax bills next
We'll bury pious Van, sir.

The slaves who loved the Income Tax,

We'll crush by scores, like mites, sir, And him, the wretch who freed the blacks, And more enslaved the whites, sir.

The peer shall dangle from his gate,
The bishop from his steeple,
Till all recanting, own, the State

Means nothing but the People.
We'll fix the Church's revenues
On Apostolic basis,

One coat, one scrip, one pair of shoes
Shall pay their strange grimaces.

We'll strap the bar's deluding train
In their own darling halter,
And with his big church Bible brain
The parson at the altar.

Hail, glorious hour, when fair Reform
Shall bless our longing nation,
And Hunt receive commands to form
A new administration.

Carlisle shall sit enthroned, where sat
Our Cranmer and our Secker;
And Watson show his snow-white hat
In England's rich Exchequer.
The breast of Thistlewood shall wear
Our Wellesley's star and sash, man;
And many a mausoleum fair

Shall rise to honest Cashman.

Then, then beneath the nine-tailed cat
Shall they who used it writhe, sir;
And curates lean, and rectors fat,
Shall dig the ground they tithe, sir.

Down with your Bayleys, and your Bests, Your Giffords, and your Gurneys: We'll clear the island of the pests,

Which mortals name attorneys.

Down with your sheriffs, and your mayors
Your registrars, and proctors,
We'll live without the lawyer's cares,

And die without the doctor's.
No discontented fair shall pout

To see her spouse so stupid;
We'll tread the torch of Hymen out,
And live content with Cupid.

Then, when the high-born and the great
Are humbled to our level,

On all the wealth of Church and State,
Like aldermen, we'll revel.

We'll live when hushed the battle's din,
In smoking and in cards, sir,

In drinking unexcised gin,

And wooing fair Poissardes, sir.

IVRY

A SONG OF THE HUGUENOTS

1824

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!

And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Na

varre!

Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance, Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France!

And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the

waters,

Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.

As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy, For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy

walls annoy.

Hurrah! Hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance

of war,

Hurrah! Hurrah! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre.

Oh! how our hearts were beating when, at the dawn of

day,

We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array;
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel-peers,
And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish

spears.

There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our

land;

And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand:

And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empur

pled flood,

And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of

war,

To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre.

The king is come to marshal us, in all his armor drest, And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant

crest.

He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye;
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and

high.

Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to

wing,

Down all our line, a deafening shout, "God save our Lord the King!"

"An if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war,

And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre."

Hurrah! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin!

The fiery Duke is pricking fast across St. André's plain, With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne. Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies, upon them with the lance. A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in

rest,

A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snowwhite crest;

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star,

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.