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!