Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/27

 light, but a true one, the rustic England of those times is drawn; and its miseries were only less than those of the peasants of France before the Revolution. Then, as the struggle against the Corn Laws deepened, Elliott wrote rough, keen, rousing lyrics, close to the very truth of things, the passion of which smote like a dagger, the reality of which could not be more lucidly expressed, What he saw, he wrote. But this denunciation, and all the fierceness of his poetry, were relieved throughout by a gracious love of natural beauty, a joy in the lovely and quiet world which knit him to the past poets, and carried him forward into those who were to come. Moreover, the springs of pity and tenderness were deep in him, and with these, the fountain of a strong and humble faith in God. These saved the poetry, gave it that high and loving note which lifted it above the angers of denunciation, and enabled it to live.

I have often thought that, bad as things are still in town and country, and much as I wish that the poetry of our own day should now enter into the battle—the progress made in social good during the last seventy years of the last century has been so great, and so well founded on steady and well-organized ideas, that it deserves greater praise than has been given to it. To read the Coronation Ode, written for the Sheffield Working Men's Association, and to compare it with the profound feeling which ran through the nation at the death of the Queen, is to realise this change. If