8 
- With that prophecy the woman’s ‘‘ passion was over,”’ 
and she ‘‘ went wandering into the night.’’ But the play 
of nature continues : 
But the merry brown hares came leaping 
Over the uplands still, 
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping 
On the side of the white chalk hill. 
Was—is the indictment true? It seemed true, and not 
without reason, to the woman. The words are her’s, not 
the author’s. He put them into her mouth dramatically. 
Yet he did so with deliberate purpose. Such evil did exist, 
perhaps still does ; and if it has been mitigated since the 
poem was written, that is largely due to Kingsley’s courage 
in not being ‘‘ mealy-mouthed.’’ Poems as well as novels 
may sometimes be written with a purpose. 
Still the poet ought to manage his purpose in a different 
way from the orator. This is a fine utterance of Kingsley, 
the ‘‘ Christian Socialist ;’’ it has many of the characteristics 
of Kingsley the poet ; but it is not one of his perfect poems. 
The moral aim stands apart from the poetry ; it does not 
share and contribute to the beauty of the whole. All art 
ought to be moral, but it also must be beautiful and 
beautiful as a whole. If it is not, the moral effect itself 
suffers. How much more effective morally are Shelley’s 
‘Lines in the Euganean Hills ’’ than his earlier poems. 
The same advance will be recognised if we pass from ‘‘ The 
Bad Squire ”’ to ‘‘ The Day of the Lord.”’ 
The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand: 
Its storms roll up the sky : 
The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold ; 
All dreamers toss and sigh ; 
The night is darkest before the morn ; 
When the pain is sorest the child is born, 
And the Day of the Lord at hand. 
Gather you, gather you, angels of God— 
Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth ; 
Come ! for the Earth is grown coward and old, 
Come down, and renew us her youth. 
Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and Love, 
Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above, 
To the Day of the Lord at hand. 
Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell— 
Famine, and Plague, and War ; 
Idleness, Bigotry, Cant, and Misrule, 
Gather, and fall in the snare! 
Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave, 
Crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave, 
In the Day of the Lord at hand. 
