through his interest in this he was led back to a study of
the mind of man and those laws which connect the work of the creative
imagination with the play of the passions. He had begun again to think
nobly of the world and human life." He was, in fact, a more thorough
Democrat socially than any but Burns of the band of poets mentioned in
Browning's gallant company, not even excepting Browning himself.

THE LOST LEADER

I

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat--
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others, she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,--they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freeman,
--He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

II

We shall march prospering,--not thro' his presence
Songs may inspirit us,--not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,--while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly,
Menace our hearts ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

Whether an artist is justified in taking the most doubtful feature of
his model's physiognomy and building up from it a repellent portrait is
question for debate, especially when he admits its incompleteness. But
we may balance against this incompleteness, the fine fire of enthusiasm
for the "cause" in the poem, and the fact that W