the advancing hours: 
     Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. 
     Then each applied to each that fatal knife,
     Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole. 
     Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
     When hot for certainties in this our life! —
     In tragic hints here see what evermore
     Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean’s force,
     Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
     To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!

     The patriot engineer

     ’Sirs! may I shake your hands? 
     My countrymen, I see! 
     I’ve lived in foreign lands
     Till England’s Heaven to me. 
     A hearty shake will do me good,
     And freshen up my sluggish blood.’

     Into his hard right hand we struck,
     Gave the shake, and wish’d him luck.

’—­From Austria I come, An English wife to win, And find an English home, And live and die therein.  Great Lord! how many a year I’ve pined To drink old ale and speak my mind!’

     Loud rang our laughter, and the shout
     Hills round the Meuse-boat echoed about.

’—­Ay, no offence:  laugh on, Young gentlemen:  I’ll join.  Had you to exile gone, Where free speech is base coin, You’d sigh to see the jolly nose Where Freedom’s native liquor flows!’

     He this time the laughter led,
     Dabbling his oily bullet head.

’—­Give me, to suit my moods, An ale-house on a heath, I’ll hand the crags and woods To B’elzebub beneath.  A fig for scenery! what scene Can beat a Jackass on a green?’

     Gravely he seem’d, with gaze intense,
     Putting the question to common sense.

’—­Why, there’s the ale-house bench:  The furze-flower shining round:  And there’s my waiting-wench, As lissome as a hound.  With “hail Britannia!” ere I drink, I’ll kiss her with an artful wink.’

     Fair flash’d the foreign landscape while
     We breath’d again our native Isle.

’—­The geese may swim hard-by; They gabble, and you talk:  You’re sure there’s not a spy To mark your name with chalk.  My heart’s an oak, and it won’t grow In flower-pots, foreigners must know.’

     Pensive he stood:  then shook his head
     Sadly; held out his fist, and said: 

’—­You’ve heard that Hungary’s floor’d?  They’ve got her on the ground.  A traitor broke her sword:  Two despots held her bound.  I’ve seen her gasping her last hope:  I’ve seen her sons strung up b’ the rope.

     ’Nine gallant gentlemen
     In Arad they strung up! 
     I work’d in peace till then:-
     That poison’d all my cup. 
     A smell of corpses haunted me: 
     My nostril sniff’d like life for sea.

     ’Take money for my hire
     From butchers?—­not the man! 
     I’ve got some natural fire,
     And don’t flash in the pan; —
     A few ideas I reveal’d:-
     ’Twas well old England stood my shield!