XIII.

They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see, For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,-- Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne's report of his Commission. The name of the poet of "Orion" and "Cosmo de' Medici" has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time to remind me that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still,--however open to the reproach of being somewhat gelid in our humanity--1844.

_A CHILD ASLEEP._

How he sleepeth, having drunken Weary childhood's mandragore! From its pretty eyes have sunken Pleasures to make room for more; Sleeping near the withered nosegay which he pulled the day before.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking; Throw them earthward where they grew; Dim are such beside the breaking Amaranths he looks unto: Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.