tells of love or beauty or the sticky pathos of
drawing-room songs. But it so happens that two of the first who saw and
spoke also sang of love and beauty with a power and sweetness that
compel us to listen still. And so, in turning their well-known pages, we
suddenly come upon things called "The Masque of Anarchy" or "The Age of
Bronze," and, with a moment's wonder what they are all about, we pass on
to "The Sensitive Plant," or "When We Two Parted." As we pass, we may
just glance at the verses and read:

"What is Freedom?--ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well--
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs....

'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak--
They are dying whilst I speak."

Or, turning on, perhaps, in search of the "Ode to the West Wind," we
casually notice the song beginning:

"Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay you low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat--nay, drink your blood?"

And so to the conclusion:

"With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre."

Or else, in looking once more for that exquisite scene between Haidee
and Don Juan on the beach, we fall unawares upon these lines:

"Year after year they voted cent. per cent.,
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions--why? for rent!
They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant
To die for England--why then live?--for rent!

* * * * *

And will they not repay the treasures lent?
No; down with everything, and up with rent!
Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent,
Being, end, aim, religion--rent, rent, rent!"

The men who uttered such lines were driven from their class, their
homes, and their country. They were despised and hated, like all who
protest against oppression and remind the smug world of uncomfortable
things. But they were great poets. One of them was our sweetest singer,
the other was, when he wrote, the most conspicuous figure in Europe, and
the most shattering force. Even England, which