Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE RISING OF THE NORTH, by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE RISING OF THE NORTH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hark - to the sound!
Last Line: Man's puny life!
Alternate Author Name(s): Cornwall, Barry; Proctor, Bryan Waller
Subject(s): Revolutions


HARK -- to the sound!
Without a trump, without a drum,
The wild-eyed, hungry millions come,
Along the echoing ground.

From cellar and cave, from street and lane,
Each from his separate place of pain,
In a blackening stream,
Come sick, and lame, and old, and poor,
And all who can no more endure;
Like a demon's dream!

Starved children with their pauper sire,
And labourers with their fronts of fire,
In angry hum,
And felons, hunted to their den,
And all who shame the name of men,
By millions come.

The good, the bad, come hand in hand,
Link'd by that law which none withstand;
And at their head
Flaps no proud banner, flaunting high,
But a shout -- sent upwards to the sky,
Of "Bread! -- Bread!"

That word their ensign -- that the cause
Which bids them burst the social laws,
In wrath, in pain,
That the sole boon for lives of toil
Demand they from their natural soil: --
Oh, not in vain!

One single year, and some who now
Come forth, with oaths and haggard brow,
Read prayer and psalm,
In quiet homes: their sole desire
Rude comforts near their cottage fire,
And Sabbath calm.

But hunger is an evil foe:
It striketh truth and virtue low,
And pride elate:
Wild hunger, stripp'd of hope and fear!
It doth not weigh; it will not hear;
It cannot wait.

For mark what comes: -- To-night the poor
(All mad) will burst the rich man's door,
And wine will run
In floods, and rafters blazing bright
Will paint the sky with crimson light,
Fierce as the sun;

And plate carved round with quaint device,
And cups all gold will melt, like ice
In Indian heat!
And queenly silks, from foreign lands,
Will bear the stamps of bloody hands
And trampling feet:

And murder -- from his hideous den
Will come abroad and talk to men,
Till creatures born
For good (whose hearts kind pity nursed)
Will act the direst crimes they cursed
But yester-morn.

So, wealth by want will be o'erthrown,
And want be strong and guilty grown,
Swollen out by blood.
Sweet peace! who sitt'st aloft, sedate,
Who bind'st the little to the great,
Canst thou not charm the serpent Hate?
And quell this feud?

Between the pomp of Croesus' state,
And Irus, starved by sullen fate --
'Tween "thee" and "me" --
'Tween deadly frost and scorching sun --
The thirty tyrants and the one --
Some space must be.

Must the world quail to absolute kings,
Or tyrant mobs, those meaner things,
All nursed in gore --
Turk's bowstring -- Tartar's vile ukase --
Grim Marat's bloody band, who pace
From shore to shore?

O God! -- since our bad world began,
Thus hath it been -- from man to man
War, to the knife!
For bread -- for gold -- for words -- for air!
Save us, O God! and hear my prayer!
Save, save from shame -- from crime -- despair
Man's puny life!





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