The English Peasant, by William Howitt
The land for me! the land for me!
Where every living soul is free!
Where winter may come, where storms may rave,
But the tyrant dare not bring his slave.
I should hate to dwell in a summer-land
Where flowers spring up on every hand;
Where the breeze is glad, the heavens are fair,
Yet you live midst the deadness of despair.
I saw a peasant sit at his door
When his weekly toil in the field was o'er:
He sate on the bench his grandsire made;
He sate in his father's walnut shade.
'Twas the golden hour of an April morn:
Lightly the lark sprang from the corn;
The blossoming trees shone purely white;
Quivered the young leaves in the light.
The Sabbath-bells, with their holy glee,
Were ringing o'er woodland, heath, and lea:
'Twas a season whose living influence ran
Through air, through earth, and the heart of man.
No feeble joy was that peasant's lot,
As his children gambolled before his cot;
Archly mimicking toils and cares,
Which coming life will make truly theirs.
But their mother with breakfast-call anon
Came forth, and the merry masque was gone:
'Twas a beautiful sight as, meekly still,
They sate in their joy on the cottage sill.
He looked on them, -- he looked to the skies, --
I saw how his heart spoke in his eyes:
Lightly he rose, and lightly he trod,
To pour out his soul in the house of God.
And is that the man, thou vaunting knave,
Thou hast dared to compare with the weeping slave?
Away! -- find one slave in the world to cope
With him in his spirit, his home, and hope!
He is not on thy lands of sin and pain,
Seared, scarred with the lash, cramped with the chain:
In thy burning isles where the heart is cold,
And man, like the beast, is bought and sold.
He is not in the East, in his gorgeous hall,
Where the servile crowds before him fall;
Till the bowstring comes, in an hour of wrath,
And he vanishes from a tyrant's path.
But oh! thou slanderer, false and vile!
Dare but to cross that garden stile;
Dare but to touch that lowly thatch;
Dare but to force that peasant's latch;
And thy craven-soul shall wildly quake
At the thunder-peal the deed shall wake:
For myriad tongues of fire shall sound,
As if every stone cried from the ground.
The indignant thrill, like flame, shall spread,
Till the isle itself rock 'neath thy tread;
And a voice from people, peer, and throne,
Ring in thine ears, -- "Atone! atone!"
For Freedom here is common guest
In princely hall and peasant's nest;
The palace is filled with her living light,
And she watches the hamlet day and night.
Then the land for me! the land for me!
Where every living soul is free!
Where winter may come, where storms may rave,
But the tyrant dare not bring his slave.
William Howitt.
Nottingham,
1826.