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.
...

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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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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When grasping tyranny offends,
Or angry bigots frown;
When rulers plot, for sefish ends,
To keep the nations down;
When statesmen form unholy league
...

YOU have no enemies, you say?
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
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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,
...

OLD Tubal Cain was a man of might
In the days when earth was young:
By the fierce red light of his furnace bright
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I'm poor and quite unknown,
I have neither fame nor rank;
My labour is all I own,
I have no gold at the bank;
I'm one of the common crowd,
...