Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whisper'd—down in hell.
Yeast
By Charles Kingsley
(English clergyman and novelist, 1819-1875; founder of the
Christian Socialist movement. In the scene here quoted, a young
University man is taken by a game-keeper to see the degradation
of English village life)
"Can't they read? Can't they practice light and
interesting handicrafts at home, as the German
peasantry do?"
"Who'll teach 'em, sir? From the plough-tail to the reaping-hook, and back again, is all they know. Besides,
