They are but Giants while we Kneel

Good People! put no faith in Kings, nor in your
Princes trust,
Who break your hearts for bread, and grind your faces
in the dust!
The Palace Paupers look from lattice high, and mock
your prayer:
The Champions of the Christ are dumb, or golden bit
they wear!
O but to see ye bend no more to earth's crime-curse"d
things!
Ye are God's Oracles: stand forth! be Nature's Priests
and Kings!
Ye fight and bleed, while Fortune's darlings slink in
splendid lair;
With lives that crawl, like worms through buried
Beauty's golden hair! —
A tale of lives wrung out in tears that Grandeur's garb
reveals,
And the last sobs of breaking hearts sound in their
Chariot-wheels!
O league ye — crush the things that kill all love and
liberty!
They are but Giants while we kneel: ONE LEAP, AND
UP GO WE.

Trust not the Priests, whose tears are lies, and hearts
are hard and cold;
Who lead ye to sweet pastures, where they fleece the
foolish fold!
The Church and State seem linkt and sworn to desolate
the land.
Good people, 'twixt these Foxes' tails, We'll fling a
fiery brand!

Up, if ye will be free, to golden calves no longer bow:
The Nations yearn for Liberty — the world is earnest
now!
Your bent-knee is half-way to hell! — Up, Serviles,
from the dust!

The Harvest of the free red-ripens for the sickle-
thrust.
They're quaking now, and shaking now, who've wrought
the hurtling sorrow,
To-day the desolators, but the desolate To-morrow!
Loud o'er their murder's menace wakes the watchword
of the Free:
They are but Giants while we kneel: ONE LEAP, AND
UP GO WE!

Some bravest patriot-hearts have gone, to break beyond
the Sea,
And many in the dungeon have died for you and me!
And still we glut the Merciless — give all Life's glory up,
That stars of flame, and winking eyes, may crown their
revel-cup!
Back, tramplers on the Many! Death and Danger
ambusht lie;
Beware ye, or the blood may run! the patient people
cry;

" All! shut not out the light of hope, or we may blindly
dash,
Like Samson in his strong death-grope, and whelm ye
in the crash.
Think how they spurred the People mad, that old
Regime of France,
Whose heads, like poppies, from Death's Scythe fell in
a bloody dance."
Ye plead in vain, ye bleed in vain, ah! Blind! when
will ye see
UP GO WE.

The merry flowers are springing from our last-year
Martyrs' mould,
As their dreams had taken blossom telling what they
would have told;

Of all our rainbowed Future: and what this earth
shall be
When we have bartered blows and bonds for life and
liberty.

Ah! what a face of glory shall the weary world put on,
When Love is crowned, and shall king the heart its
royal throne!

O we shall see our darlings smile, — who meet us tear-
ful now, —
Ere the Eternal morn breaks grey, on the Beloved's
brow:

And Love shall give the kiss of Death no more to those
we love,
And pride, not shame, shall flush the face of our heart-
nestling Dove.

Rouse, Titans, scale th' Olympus where the hindering
Tyrants be:
They are but Giants while we kneel: ONE LEAP, AND
UP GO WE!