Charles Mackay Poems

If I were a voice, a persuasive voice,
That could travel the wide world through,
I would fly on the beams of the morning light,
And speak to men with a gentle might,
And tell them to be true.
...

There dwelt a miller, hale and bold,
Beside the river Dee;
He worked and sang from morn till night -
No lark more blithe than he;
...

The man is thought a knave, or fool.
Or bigot, plotting crime,
Who, for the advancement of his kind.
Is wiser than his time.
...

YOU have no enemies, you say?
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
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O! why should we bewail the dead,
Why sorrow o'er their narrow bed?
Have they not sought the happy shore,
Where human cares oppress no more?
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Light is love without esteem.
Lighter than a feather,
But ours has borne
Contempt and scorn,
And sorrow's wintry weather!
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When grasping tyranny offends,
Or angry bigots frown;
When rulers plot, for sefish ends,
To keep the nations down;
When statesmen form unholy league
...

When tke sentinel mastiff keepeth guard,
And all is dark in the farmer's yard,
Ere the early cock hath begun to crow,
Abroad with the owl and the bat we go:
Thirst is mighty-hunger is strong
...

The merry Spring, the bright, bright Spring,
What joys she shakes from her flowery wing!
When the young bird sings from its leafy nest,
How happy it sleeps on its loved one's breast;
How sweet to roam at beauty's side,
...

Why, O wind of summer.
Why that restless moan?
Weepest thou for pleasures
That are past and gone?
...