The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-10-09 00:00:00

TO THE BEE.

Ordorous reveller in clover—
Happy hummer England over—
Blossom-kisser ! wing thy way
Where the breeze keeps holiday.
Thou art like the poet, free,
All sweet flowers have sweets for thee,
Insect ministrel—blessed bee !

Sunburnt labourer, brisk and brown—
Every
where o'er dale and down :
Spring's blithe pursuivant and page;
Hermit holy; Druid sage;
Pattering. in a foxglove-bell,
Cloistered snug, as in a cell:
Fairy of the lonely dell.
Sometimes a small spot of shade,
By the dappling maple made,
Do I think thee; and thy note,
Hum of cities hard ;emote :
Here and there, now more, now less,
Seems thy droning to express
•
Noontide lazy weariness.
What sweet traffic dost thou drive—
Endless nature is thy hive !
Pasture after pasture roam,
Vagrant ! every where at home!
We but see thy gorgeous bowers;
Whilst thou spendest all thy hours
In the very heart of flowers.
Freihest feeling hest thou wrought
In me, of old home-bred thought;
Of dear homesteads, flower-c/ergrown,
Well in blessed boyhood known :
In thy warm, familiar sound,
Years of summer youth are found,
Sabbath, sunshine without bound.
Temples, nobler none, are thine,
Where each flower thou mak'st a shrine
Nor may any pilgrim bow
, More devotedly than thou :
Gatelike petals, open-blown,
Wide for thee, and thee alone ;
Where thou com'st as to a throne.
Ab ! how sleepy—thou, I ween,
In the poppy's bloom bast been ;
Or art drunken with the wine
Of flushed rose or eglantine :
Boundless revel dost thou keep,
'Till o'ercome by golden sleep,—
Tiny Bacchus ! drinking deep.

Cheerey pilgrim—sportive fay—
Wing and sing thy life away!
Never pang thy course attends,
Lack of love, nor feigning friends;
In a blossom thou art blest,

And canst sink to sweetest rest,—
Homed where'er thou likest best.
Fraser's Maga:ine for October.)

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE PRECURSORY AGITATION.
(From the John Bull.)
Mr. O'Connell has published a fourth piece of blus-
tering absurdity, of which only one passage seems
worthy of notice. All the rest is stale treason and
hackneyed ribaldry ; but this ought to be read, for
two reasons, which we shall subsequently give.
Mr. O'Connell says—
I cannot but smile at the discovery which some enemies
of mine and yours have made—of an inconsistency in my
sentiments respecting the Ministry. Just as if the nature
of the facts did not create that inconsistency. For their
conduct in Ireland since Lord Normanby became Lord-
Lieutenant, they hare much of my commendation; but in same
instances their conduct in England has justly called forth my
censure. Notwithstanding that censure, they have my sup-
port as a Member of Parliament—that is, I attend and vote
with them whenever they are right; when they are wrong
they neither receive nor do they require my support; in that
case they are quite certain of being supported by the Tories.
In short, the single secret of the support I give the Ministry
is just this—that the only choice lies between them and the
Tories. If my opposing the Ministry gave me the least chance
of a better Administration, 1 would oppose them at once; but
as their receding from office must inevitably be followed by
the accession of the Tory Cabinet, my choice is made. I
prefer the /rags ( though far from being so good as .1 could
wish) to the Tories, whose principles and conduct, hateful
everywhere, would exhibit itself in Satanic cruelty in Ireland.
In a lord—l prefer the Whigs to keep out the Tories.
Not one honest Irishman in his senses can hesitate to
make the same choice, when he has no other alternative
than " Whigs or Tories." In Ireland the Tories would of
course renew all the atrocity of the Orange system : they
would necessarily drive the country to the very verge of
rebellion, and the greatest exertions would be required to
prevent (were prevention possible) the country from being
deluged with human blood. My determination is to preserve
Ireland from that catastrophe by all the means in my power;
and one of the means of so preserving Ireland is to keep the
Whigs in office and the Tories out as long as we can.

Now, really this is too ridiculous—too laughable—
to be treated seriously; nor should we notice it, but
for the reasons we have promised.
Our first reason for noticing it is to exhibit, upon
Mr. O'Connell's own showing, how completely the
destinies of Protestant England are regulated by an
insignificant knot of Papists ; to whose care the go-
verenaeut of our young Queen (who has solemnly
sworn before her people to maintain their Protestant
religion) is avowedly confided ; and our second reason
is because the Tories, who, if in power, would exhibit
their hateful principles and conduct in Satanic cruelty
in Ireland, were the party who gave Mr. O'Connell
the power of which he now brags ; the same Mr.
O'Connell having declared, before a committee of the
House of Commons, his entire and sincere conviction
that the Papists, if admitted to Parliament, would
never interfere, or use their consequent influence, in
agitating or unsettling the established order of things.
This Mr. O'Connell predicted; and to this he and his
friends subsequently swore.
These were his" Precursory Proceedings" previous
to the fatal emancipation.