Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE OPENING OF FIRST PUBLIC PLEASURE-GROUND AT BIRMINGHAM, by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE OPENING OF FIRST PUBLIC PLEASURE-GROUND AT BIRMINGHAM, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Soldiers of industry! Come forth
Last Line: To feel and understand.
Alternate Author Name(s): Houghton, 1st Baron; Houghton, Lord
Subject(s): Birmingham, England; Parks


I.

SOLDIERS of Industry! come forth:
Knights of the Iron Hand!
Past is the menace of the North
That frowned upon our land.
We have no will to count the cost,
No thought of what we bore
Now the last warrior's gaze has lost
The doomed Crimean shore!

II.

That shore, so precious in the graves
Of those whose lustrous deeds
Consecrate Balaklava's waves,
And Alma's flowe'ring reeds;
Where, at some future festival,
Our Russian foe will tell,
How British wrestlers, every fall,
Rose stronger than they fell.

III.

Now town and hamlet cheer to see
Each bronzed and bearded man,
Or murmur low, "'Twas such as he,
Who died at the Redan!"
Rest for his worn or crippled frame,
Rest for his anxious eye, --
Rest, even from the noise of Fame,
A Nation's welcome-cry!

IV.

But Ye, -- whose resolute intents
And sturdy arms combine
To bend the' obdurate elements
Of Earth to Man's design --
Ye, to your hot and constant task
Heroically true,
Soldiers of Industry! we ask,
"Is there no Peace for you?"

V.

It may not be: the' unpausing march
Of toil must still be yours --
Conquest, with no triumphant arch,
Unsung by Troubadours:
Yet, as the fiercest Knights of old
To give "God's Truce" agreed,
Cry ye, who are as brave and bold,
"God's Truce" in Labour's need.

VI.

"God's Truce" be their device, who meet
To-day with generous zeal
To work, by many a graceful feat,
Their brethren's future weal;
From stifling street and popu'lous mart
To guard this ample room,
For honest pleasures kept apart,
And deck'd with green and bloom.

VII.

Here let the eye to toil minute
Condemned, with joy behold
The fresh enchantment of each suit
That clothes the common mould:
Here let the arm whose skilful force
Controuls such mighty powers,
Direct the infant's totte'ring course
Amid the fragrant bowers.

VIII.

Yet all in vain this happy hope,
In vain this friendly care,
Unless of loftier life the scope
In every mind be there:
In vain the fairest, brightest, scene,
If passion's sensual haze
And clouded spirits lie between
To mar the moral gaze.

IX.

He only at the marriage-feast
Of Nature and of God
Sits worthily who sits released
From sin's and sorrow's load:
And then, on his poor window-sill,
One flower more pleasure brings
Than all the gorgeous plants that fill
The restless halls of kings.

X.

All Nature answers in the tone
In which she is addressed:
Beneath Mont Blanc's illumined throne,
The peasant walks unblessed;
The' Italian struggles in his bonds,
Beside his glorious sea,
And Beauty from all sight absconds
Which is not wise and free.

XI.

So, Friends! while gentle Arts are wed
To frame your perfect plan,
Broadcast be Truth and Knowledge spread
O'er this rich soil of Man!
Ideal parks -- ideal shade --
Lay out with libe'ral hand --
But teach the souls you strive to aid
To feel and understand.





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