Forth went the peasant

Adam's curse begun;

Home went the peasant in the western sun;
He heard the bleating fold, the lowing herd,
The last shrill carol of the nestling bird!

He saw the rare lights of the hamlet gleam
And fade;
the stars grow stiller on the stream;

Swart, by the woodland, cowers the gipsy tent

-

Whence peer dark eyes that watch'd him as he went
He paused and turned: - Him more the outlaws charm
Than the trim hostel and the happy farm.
Strangers, like him, from antique lands afar,
Aliens untamed where'er their wanderings are,

High Syrian sires of old;* — dark fragments torn
From the great creed of Isis, now forlorn

In rags
all earth their foe, and day by day
Worn in the strife with social Jove, away –

Wretched 't is true, yet less enslaved, their strife
Than our false peace with all this masque of life,
Convention's lies, the league with Custom made,
The crimes of glory, and the frauds of trade.

According to the hypothesis of Voltaire, that the Gipsies are a Syrian tribe, the remains of the long scattered fraternity of Isis, — an hypothesis which has more in its favour than at first appears against the recent and now popularly received opinion which deduces their vagrant origin from India.

Rest and rude food the lawless Nomads yield;
The dews rise ghost-like from the whitening field,
And ghost-like on the wanderer glides the sleep
Through which the phantom Dreams, their witching
Sabbat keep!

At dawn, while yet, around the Indian, lay
The dark fantastic groups, resumed the way;
Before his steps the landscape spreads more free
And fresh from Man; ev'n as a broadening sea,
When, more and more the harbour left behind,

The lone sail drifts before the strengthening wind.

Behold the Sun! - how stately from the East,

Bright from God's presence, comes the glorious Priest!
Deck'd as beseems the Mighty One to whom

Heaven gives the charge to hallow and illume!
How, as he comes, through the Great Temple, EARTH,
Peals the rich Jubilee of grateful mirth!

The infant flowers their odour-censers swinging,
Through aislèd glades Air's Anthem-Chorus ringing;
While, like some soul lifted aloft by love,

High and alone the sky-lark halts above,

High, o'er the sparkling dews, the glittering corn,
Hymns his frank happiness and hails the morn!

He stands upon the green hill's lighted brow,
And sees the world at smiling peace below,
Hamlet and farm, and thy best type, Desire

Of the sad Heart, the Heaven-ascending spire!

He stood and mused, and thus his musing ran: "How strong, how feeble, O vain Art of Man! Thou coverest Earth with wonders

at thy hand Curbs the meek water, blooms the subject land: Why halts thy magic here? - Why only deck'd Earth's sterile surface, mournful Architect? Why art thou powerless o'er the world within? Why raise the Eden, yet retain the sin? Why, while the earth, thou but enjoy'st an hour, Betrays thy splendour and attests thy power,

Why o'er the spirit does thy sorcery cease?

Lo the sweet landscape round thee lull'd in peace! Why wakes each heart to sorrow, care, and strife? Why with yon temple so at war the life?

Why all so slight the variance, or in grief

Or guilt,

the sum of suffering and relief, Between the desert's son whose wild content

Redeems no waste and charms no element

And ye the Magians? - ye the giant birth

Of Lore and Science Brahmins of the Earth?

Behold the calm herd drinking in the stream,

Behold the glad bird glancing in the beam,

Say, know ye pleasure, ye, the Eternal Heirs

Of stars and spheres-life's calm content, like theirs?
Your stores enrich, your powers exalt the few,
And curse the millions wealth and power subdue;
And ev'n the few—what lord of luxury knows
The joy in strife, the sweetness in repose,
Which bless the houseless Arab? - Still behind
Ease waits Disgust, and with the falling wind
Droop the dull sails ordained to wing the mind.
Increasing wants the sum of care increase,
The piled up knowledge but sepulchres peace,
Ye quell the instincts, the free love, frank hate,
And bid hard Reason hold the scales of Fate

What is your gain? - from each slain instinct springs A hydra passion, poisoning while it stings;

Free love foul lust; - the frank hate's manly strife

A plotting mask'd dissimulating life;

Truth flies the world- one falsehood taints the sky, Each form a phantom, and each word a lie!

11*

"Yet what am I? - the crush'd and baffled foe,

Who dared the strife, yet would denounce the blow.
What arms had I against this world to wield?

What mail the naked savage heart to shield?
To this hoar world I brought the trusts of youth,
Warm zeal for men, and fix'd repose in truth
Amongst the young I look'd for young desires,
Love which adores, and Honour which aspires
Amongst the old, for souls set free from all
The earthlier chains which young desires enthrall,
Serene and gentle both to soothe and chide,
The sires to pity, yet the seers to guide -
And lo! this civilised and boasted plan,
This order'd ring and harmony of man,

One hideous, cynic, levelling orgy, where
Youth Age's ice, and Age Youth's fever share -
The unwrinkled brow, the calculating brain,

The passion balanced with the weights of gain,
And Age more hotly clutching than the boy
At the lewd bauble and the gilded toy.

"Why should I murmur?

why accuse the strong?

I own Earth's law the conquer'd are the wrong,