Selected Poems and Songs of Charles Mackay, With a Commendatory and Critical Intr. By Eminent Writers

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ...vice with full pockets, That swindling, if greatly successful, Is much too exalted for censure, Condoned by the high and the low--Woe to the people! woe to them, woe I VIII. "And I laugh to myself, well contented, 'To see the quick-coming Hereafter Of storm and convulsion and earthquake, That shall topple to earth the deceptions That lift up their sun-tinted turrets, Defiant of Fate and of Justice. I hear the first wail of the tempest, And rumbling of fire subterranean--Certain to burst, and to overflow--Woe to the people! woe to them, woe t" II.--He Surveys The Empires, I. The kingdoms of earth are my kingdoms;--I love to roam thoughtfully through them, To study the ways of my subjects, My people, my slaves, my disciples! They know not that / am their master, But think with my thoughts notwithstanding, And do my behests as I bid them! And ever, for ever, the currents flow; Upheaval! upheaval! it surges belmv! II. The nations that boast of their freedom, And flatter themselves by believing That government dwells on their voices, Are governed by gabbling impostors Who tickle their ears with vain phrases, Empty of purpose and meaning, Except to deceive and delude them, And lead them to shame and dishonour, And merited overthrow;--Upheaval! upheaval! it trembles below! III. I enter the councils of princes, I talk with great heroes and statesmen, Who think they can twist round their fingers The threads of a web unentangled, And weave it exact to their pattern. They know not that Fate is a weaver Far defter than they, who regards not Their wefts or their woofs, or their darnings, Or how the entanglements grow. Upheaval! upheaval! it rumbles below! IV. I study the empires, and wonder How the youth and the bloom of their people Should arm, or be armed, b...