TO THE ARTISTS.

You tell me these great lords have raised up Art:

I say they have degraded it. Look you,

When ever did they let the poet sing,

The painter paint, the sculptor hew and cast,

The music raise her heavenly voice, except

To praise them and their wretched rule o'er men?

Behold our English poets that were poor

Since these great lords were rich and held the state:

Behold the glories of the German land,

Poets, musicians, driven, like them, to death

Unless they'd tune their spirits’ harps to play

Drawing-room pieces for the chattering fools

Who aped the taste for Art or for a leer.

Go to, no Art was ever noble yet,

Noble and high, the speech of godlike men,

When fetters bound it, be they gold or flowers.

All that is noblest, highest, greatest, best,

Comes from the Galilean peasant's hut, comes from

The Stratford village, the Ayrshire plough, the shop

That gave us Chaucer, the humble Milton's trade —

Bach's, Mozart's, great Beethoven's,— And these are they

Who knew the People, being what they knew!

Go to, if in the future years no strain,

No picture of earth's glory like to what

Your Artists raised for that small clique or this

Of supercilious imbecilities —

O if no better demi-gods of Art

Can rise save those whose barbarous tinsel yet

Makes hideous all the beauty of old homes —

Then let us seek the comforts of despair

In democratic efforts dead and gone:

Weep with Pheideian Athens, sigh an hour

With Raffaelle's Florence, beat the head and breast

O'er Shakspere's England that from Milton's took

In lips the name that leaped from lead and flame

From out her heart against the Spanish guns!