the days of 'English Bess' were
jolly fine empire-making days, and produced great poets (Shakespeare,
for example) worthy of them; and when you go on to reflect that these
also are jolly fine empire-making days, but that somehow Mr. Austin
is your laureate, and that the only poetry which counts is being
written by men out of harmony with your present empire-making mood,
the easiest plan (if you happen to think the difference worth
considering) will be to call the Muse a traitress, and declare that
every poem better than Mr. Austin's is a vote given to--whatever
nation your Yellow Press happens to be insulting at this moment.
But, if you care to look a little deeper, you may find that some
difference in your methods of empire-making is partly accountable for
the change. A true poet must cling to universal truth; and by
insulting it (as, for example, by importing into present-day politics
the spirit which would excuse the iniquities of Henry VIII. on the
ground that 'he gave us English Bess'!) you are driving the true poet
out of your midst. Read over the verses above quoted, and then
repeat to yourself, slowly, these lines:--

"Last, if upon the cold, green-mantling sea
Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar,
Both castaway,
And one must perish--let it not be he
Whom thou art sworn to obey."

I ask no more. If a man cannot see the difference at once, I almost
despair of making him perceive why poetry refuses just now even more
obstinately than trade (if that be possible) to 'follow the flag.'
It will not follow, because you are waving the flag over
self-deception. You may be as blithe as Plato in casting out the
poets from your commonwealth--though for other reasons than his.
You may be as blithe as Dogberry in determining, of reading and
writing, that they may appear when there is no need of such vanity.
But you are certainly driving them forth to say, in place of
"O beloved city of Cecrops!" "O beloved city of God!" There was a
time, not many years ago, when an honest poet could have used both
cries together and deemed that he meant the same thing by the two.
But the two cries to-day have an utterly different meaning--and by
your compulsion or by the compulsion of such politics as you have
come to tolerate.

And therefore the young poet whom I have quoted has joined the band
of those poets whom we are forcing out of the city, to leave our
ideals to the fate which, since