WAT TYLER'S ADDRESS TO THE

KING.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

King of England,

Petitioning for pity is most weak,

The sovereign People ought to demand justice. I lead them here against the Lord's anointed, Because his Ministers have made him odious! His yoke is heavy, and his burden grievous. Why do ye carry on this fatal war,

To force upon the French a King they hate; Tearing our young men from their peaceful homes,

Forcing his hard-earned fruits from the honest peasant,

Distressing us to desolate our neighbors?
Why is this ruinous poll-tax imposed,

But to support your Court's extravagance,
And your mad title to the Crown of France?
Shall we sit tamely down beneath these evils,'
Petitioning for pity? King of England,
Why are we sold like cattle in your markets,
Deprived of every privilege of man?
Must we lie tamely at our tyrant's feet,

And, like your spaniels, lick the hand that beats

us?

!

You sit at ease in your gay palaces:

The costly banquet courts your appetite;

Sweet music soothes your slumbers: we, the while, Scarce by hard toil can earn a little food,

And sleep scarce sheltered from the cold night wind;

Whilst your wild projects wrest the little from us Which might have cheered the wintry hours of

age!

The Parliament forever asks more money; We toil and sweat for

money for your taxes; Where is the benefit,-what good reap we

From all the counsels of your government?

Think you that we should quarrel with the French?

Do

What boots to us your victories, your glory?
We pay, we fight, you profit at your ease!
Do you not claim the country as your own?
you not call the venison of the forest,
The birds of Heaven, your own?-prohibiting us,
Even though in want of food, to seize the prey
Which Nature offers? King! is all this just?
Think you we do not feel the wrongs we suffer?
The hour of retribution is at hand,

And tyrants tremble,-mark me, King of
England.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered,

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,

The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,

At the dead of night a sweet vision I saw,

And thrice ere the morning I dreamed it again.

Methought, from the battlefield's dreadful array, Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track; "Twas autumn,-and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the cornreapers sung.