I would copy more here, but as the whole ballad (equally with the two just following) is printed in my Miscellaneous Poems and still extant at Paternoster Square, I refer my reader thereto if he wants more of it.  The next of note was one headed “Ye Thirty Noble Nations,” and is remarkable for this strange fact, viz., that I composed about the half of those eighteen eight-line stanzas in a semi-slumber.  I was as I thought asleep, but I got out of bed and pencilled the ballad (or most of it, for I added and amended afterwards) straight off, and went to bed again, of course to sleep profoundly; when I got up next morning and found the MS. on my table, it seemed like a dream, but it wasn’t.  Those who are curious may look out this piece of “quasi inspiration” in that poem-book aforesaid.  But here is the opening verse for those who cannot get the volume in bulk:—­

    “Ye thirty noble Nations
      Confederate in one,
    That keep your starry stations
      Around the Western sun,—­
    I have a glorious mission,
      And must obey the call,
    A claim!—­and a petition! 
      To set before you all.”

The claim being love for Mother Britain; the petition for freedom to the slave.  It was published in 1851.

A third is chiefly noticeable for this.  America had since my last address to her as “Thirty Nations” added three more States; and I was challenged to include them:  which I did as thus; here are three of the Stanzas in proof:—­

    “Giant aggregate of Nations,
      Glorious Whole of glorious Parts,
    Unto endless generations
      Live United, hands and hearts! 
    Be it storm or summer weather,
      Peaceful calm, or battle jar,
    Stand in beauteous strength together,
      Sister States, as Now ye are!

    “Charmed with your commingled beauty
      England sends the signal round,
    ‘Every man must do his duty’
      To redeem from bonds the bound! 
    Then indeed your banner’s brightness
      Shining clear from every star
    Shall proclaim your joint uprightness,
      Sister States, as Now ye are!

    “So a peerless constellation
      May those stars together blaze! 
    Three and ten-times threefold Nation
      Go ahead in power and praise! 
    Like the many-breasted goddess
      Throned on her Ephesian car,
    Be—­one heart in many bodies,
      Sister States, as Now ye are!”

There are also several other like balladisms, and sundry sonnets, all of which I had from time to time to greet my American audiences withal.  And thus before I paid my visits over there, the land was salted with ore and the water enriched with ground-bait, so that when the poetaster appeared he was welcomed by every class as a promoter of International Kindliness.

CHAPTER XXXII.