Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play <br />No trick of priestcraft here! <br />Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay <br />A hand on Elliott's bier? <br />Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust, <br />Beneath his feet he trod. <br /> <br />He knew the locust swarm that cursed <br />The harvest-fields of God. <br />On these pale lips, the smothered thought <br />Which England's millions feel, <br />A fierce and fearful splendor caught, <br />As from his forge the steel. <br />Strong-armed as Thor, a shower of fire <br />His smitten anvil flung; <br />God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire, <br />He gave them all a tongue! <br /> <br />Then let the poor man's horny hands <br />Bear up the mighty dead, <br />And labor's swart and stalwart bands <br />Behind as mourners tread. <br />Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds, <br />Leave rank its minster floor; <br />Give England's green and daisied grounds <br />The poet of the poor! <br /> <br />Lay down upon his Sheaf's green verge <br />That brave old heart of oak, <br />With fitting dirge from sounding forge, <br />And pall of furnace smoke! <br />Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds, <br />And axe and sledge are swung, <br />And, timing to their stormy sounds, <br />His stormy lays are sung. <br /> <br />There let the peasant's step be heard, <br />The grinder chant his rhyme, <br />Nor patron's praise nor dainty word <br />Befits the man or time. <br />No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh <br />For him whose words were bread; <br />The Runic rhyme and spell whereby <br />The foodless poor were fed! <br /> <br />Pile up the tombs of rank and pride, <br />O England, as thou wilt! <br />With pomp to nameless worth denied, <br />Emblazon titled guilt! <br />No part or lot in these we claim; <br />But, o'er the sounding wave, <br />A common right to Elliott's name, <br />A freehold in his grave!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elliott/
