Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. EMPIRE, by EDWARD CARPENTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. EMPIRE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Blind, fooled, and staggering from her throne, I saw her fall
Last Line: Tis better he should die.
Subject(s): Great Britain - Commonwealth & Colonies; British Empire; England - Empire


Blind, fooled, and staggering from her throne, I saw her fall,
Clutching at the gaud of Empire;
And wondering, round her, sons and daughter-nations stood—
What madness had possessed her.
But when they lifted her, the heart was dead,
Withered within the body, and all the veins
Were choked with yellow dirt.

O ENGLAND, fooled and blind,
Come look, if but a moment, on yourself!
See, through your streets—what should be living sap of your free
blood—
These brutish squalid joyless drink-sodden populations flowing;
And in your mills and factories the weary faces, sad monotonous lives,
Or miles of cottage tenements with weakly red-eyed children, worn-out
mothers.
See, from your offices and shops at closing hours, the morbid
stream—as from unhealthy glands within the body—
Crowds issuing of anaemic youths and girls, pale, prematurely sexual,
With flabby minds and bodies (held together chiefly by their clothes) and
perky pick-me-up manners;
See, on the land, where at least there should be courage and grit and
sinew,
A thin-legged slouching apathetic population, ignorant even of agriculture,

And in the mines and coal-pits, instead of lusty power, poor rickety limbs
and ill-built bodies;
And ask yourself the searching question straight,
How out of such roots shall a strong nation grow?

And then look upward, at the surface show and flaunt of society,
Those that are well-fed, and (out of the labor of the others) have plenty
of chink in their pockets—
The club and drawing-room life—
Look well, look well, and see the feebleness and in-sincerity of it:
The scores and scores of thousands of titled and moneyed persons—a
vast and ever-growing multitude—living the lives of idiots,
Faiblesse oblige their motto:
Of men scarce fit even to be good officers, much less good administrators;
of women hardly worthy to be mothers;
A societhy wielding enormous wealth and privilege, skilled chiefly in the
finesse of personal gain and advancement, and honeycombed by cynicism and
unbelief:
And for the rest, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands swarming in
commercial dens and exchanges,
The life of the successful business man, the company-promoter, the lawyer;
the manufacturer, traveller, factor dealer, merchant, speculator; the bank, the
counting-house, the big store, the director's office; the advertising agent, and
the vendor of patent medicines;
Think of all these, and of the ideals beneath and behind them—and ask
again the question,
How out of such stuff can a strong nation grow?

Where (and the question must be faced),
Where, anywhere over the surface of England to-day, do the necessary
conditions exist for the outcrop of a decent population—if only a body of a
few hundreds at a time?
Where are the conditions for the growth of men and women—
Healthy and well-formed of limb, self-reliant, enterprising, alert, skilled
in the use of tools, able to cope with Nature in her moods, and with the Earth
for their sustenance, loving and trustful of each other, united and invincible
in silent faith?
Where is the Statesman who makes it the main item of his programme to
produce such a population? Where the Capitalist, where the Landlord?
Where indeed—in a country in which Politics are but a game of party
bluff, where Labor is a modified slavery, and where Land (for such purposes as
indicated) is simply not to be had?

And the answer comes: The conditions do not exist.
The conditions (says the doctor) of life and vitality are gone—already
the process of decay has set in, which only a swift crisis can arrest:
The heart is dying down,
Withering within the body; and the veins
Are choked with yellow dirt.

And this Thing cries for Empire.

This Thing from all her smoky cities and slums, her idiot clubs and
drawing-rooms, and her brokers' dens,
Cries out to give her blessings to the world!
And even while she cries
Stand Ireland and India at her doors
In rags and famine.

These are her blessings of Empire!
Ireland (dear Sister-isle, so near at hand, so fertile, once so
prosperous),
Rack-rented, drained, her wealth by absentees in London wasted, her people
with deep curses emigrating;
India the same—her life-blood sucked—but worse:
Perhaps in twenty years five hundred millions sterling, from her famished
myriads,
Taken to feed the luxury of Britain,
Taken, without return—
While Britain wonders with a pious pretence of innocence
Why famine follows the flag.

Last, but not least, insult is added to injury.
For, while she prates the blessings of her Empire, contempt and studied
indifference are her methods of administering it:
An empty House to hear the burden of the sorrows of India,
And Irish questions treated with derision.

O England, thou old hypocrite, thou sham, thou bully of weak nations whom
thou wert called to aid,
Thy day of ruin surely is near at hand,
Save for one thing—which scarcely may be hoped for—
Save that a heart of grace within thee rise
And stay the greed of gold—which else must slay thee.

For now I see thee like a great old tree,
A Mother of the forest,
Prone on the ground and hollow to the core, with branches spread and
stretched about the world.
And truly these thy seedlings scattered round
May spring and prosper, and even here and there
One of thy great arms elbowed in the earth,
Or severed from the trunk, may live again;
But Thou—thy tale of ancient glory is told—
I fear thou canst but die.


And better so perhaps; for what is good shall live.
The brotherhood of nations and of men
Comes on apace. New dreams of youth bestir
The ancient heart of the earth—fair dreams of love
And equal freedom for all folk and races.
The day is past for idle talk of Empire;
And who would glory in dominating others—
Be it man or nation—he already has writ
His condemnation clear in all men's hearts.
'Tis better he should die.





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