and dearth,
He pours a triple blessing
To fill and fatten earth!

"Gaze round in deep emotion;
The rich and ripened grain
Is like a golden ocean
Becalm'd upon the plain;
And we who late were weepers,
Lest judgment should destroy,
Now sing, because the reapers
Are come again with joy!

"O praise the Hand that giveth,
And giveth evermore,
To every soul that liveth
Abundance flowing o'er!
For every soul He filleth
With manna from above,
And over all distilleth
The unction of His love.

"Then gather, Christians, gather,
To praise with heart and voice
The good Almighty Father
Who biddeth you rejoice:
For He hath turned the sadness
Of His children into mirth,
And we will sing with gladness
The harvest-home of Earth."

My "Song of Seventy," published more than forty years ago, has been
exceedingly popular; and I here make this extract from an early
archive-book respecting it:--"Dr. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, was so
pleased with this said 'Song of Seventy' that he posted off to
Hatchards' forthwith (after seeing it quoted anonymously in the
_Athenaeum_) to inquire the author's name." It was published in "One
Thousand Lines." I composed it during a solitary walk near
Hurstperpoint, Sussex, in 1845, near about when I wrote "Never give up."

* * * * *

Of my several ballads upon Gordon (I think there were nine of them) I
will here enshrine one, printed in the newspapers of May 1884, and
perhaps worthiest to be saved from evanescence:--

"If England had but spoken
With Wellesley's lion roar,
Or flung out Nelson's token
Of duty as of yore,
We should not now, too late, too late,
Be saddened day by day,
Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate,
The victim of delay.

"He felt in isolation
'_Civis Romanus sum_,'
And trusted his great nation
Right sure that help would come:
Could he have dreamt that British power
Which placed him at his post,
In peril's long-expected hour
Would leave him to be lost?

"He lives alone for others,--
Himself he scorns to save,
And ev'n with savage brothers
Will share their bloody grave!
Woe! woe to us! should England's glory,
To our rulers' blame,
Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story,