Lines, To Mr. Samuel Bamford, On His Seventy-Sixth Birthday, February 28th, 1864. Poem by Samuel Bamford

Brave old Sam Bamford! Rolling years
Have sunk deep ruts into thy cheeks and brow
But thy brave heart nor frets nor fears;
Faith waits in patience for the future, now.

Like some old castle I have seen
Standing in majesty from out the past,
Not yet in ruins, but, I ween,
Batter'd and worn by many a stormy blast,

Then, in the fullness of thy clays,
With crowds of yesterday's within thine eye.
And in thy rugged manly face
A history of thoughts that cannot die—

Art waiting (for thy work is done),
The summons which shall take thee hence away,
To gain the glory thou hast won,
And wear the crown that only brave ones may.

England is more in debt to thee—
Old weaver, with the patriarchal brow—
Than England knows herself to be,
Yet shall she pay thee, though she holdeth now.

Cobden the reasoner, and Bright
The Cicero of this our modern day,
Both will confess in truth and right
Thou wast the 'Baptist' who prepared their way.

Europe shall know thee when the truth
Victor o'er tyranny has set men free;
When nations springing into youth
Shall sing the natal hymn of liberty—

When Poland, trodden in the dust
And writhing 'mid the ruins of her fame,
Comes to her life, as come she must,
Strong in the resurrection of her name—

When Hungary, the seeming lost,
But only hiding to deceive her foe;
Shall waken up a conquering host
And strike for 'freedom' the predestined 'blow'—

When fair Columbia ends her strife,
Ridding the negroes of the chains they've worn;
When liberty renews her life,
To all the glories of her mission born:—

Then, in the future that we see,
Bamford, the Radical, shall live anew,
And be proclaim'd abroad, as he
Who fought for Freedom when her friends were few!