Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet Part 57

There is the spirit-stirring marching air of the German workmen students

Thou, thou, thou, and thou, Sir Master, fare thee well.--

Perhaps a half reproachful hint to the poor old England he is leaving. What a glorious metre! warming one's whole heart into life and energy! If I could but write in such a metre one true people's song, that should embody all my sorrow, indignation, hope--fitting last words for a poet of the people--for they will be my last words--Well--thank G.o.d! at least I shall not be buried in a London churchyard! It may be a foolish fancy--but I have made them promise to lay me up among the virgin woods, where, if the soul ever visits the place of its body's rest, I may s.n.a.t.c.h glimpses of that natural beauty from which I was barred out in life, and watch the gorgeous flowers that bloom above my dust, and hear the forest birds sing around the Poet's grave.

Hark to the grand lilt of the "Good Time Coming!"--Song which has cheered ten thousand hearts; which has already taken root, that it may live and grow for ever--fitting melody to soothe my dying ears! Ah! how should there not be A Good Time Coming?--Hope, and trust, and infinite deliverance!--a time such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive!--coming surely, soon or late, to those for whom a G.o.d did not disdain to die!

Our only remaining duty is to give an extract from a letter written by John Crossthwaite, and dated

"GALVESTON, TEXAS, _October, 1848_.

... "I am happy. Katie is happy, There is peace among us here, like 'the clear downs.h.i.+ning after rain.' But I thirst and long already for the expiration of my seven years' exile, wholesome as I believe it to be. My only wish is to return and a.s.sist in the Emanc.i.p.ation of Labour, and give my small aid in that fraternal union of all cla.s.ses which I hear is surely, though slowly, spreading in my mother-land.

"And now for my poor friend, whose papers, according to my promise to him, I transmit to you. On the very night on which he seems to have concluded them--an hour after we had made the land--we found him in his cabin, dead, his head resting on the table as peacefully as if he had slumbered. On a sheet of paper by him were written the following verses; the ink was not yet dry:

"'MY LAST WORDS.

"'I.

"'Weep, weep, weep, and weep, For pauper, dolt, and slave; Hark! from wasted moor and fen, Feverous alley, workhouse den, Swells the wail of Englishmen: "Work! or the grave!"

"'II.

"'Down, down, down, and down, With idler, knave, and tyrant; Why for sluggards stint and moil He that will not live by toil Has no right on English soil; G.o.d's word's our warrant!

"'III.

"'Up, up, up, and up, Face your game, and play it!

The night is past--behold the sun!-- The cup is full, the web is spun, The Judge is set, the doom begun; Who shall stay it?'"