" He may see a vision of Utopia, and long that men shall
become citizens there, but the man who actually perfects human society
is he who patiently toils at the "dim, vulgar, vast, unobvious work"
[Footnote: See _Sordello_.] of the world, here amending a law, here
building a settlement house, and so on. Thus the reformer charges the
poet. Mrs. Browning, in _Aurora Leigh_, makes much of the issue,
and there the socialist, Romney Leigh, sneers at the poet's
inefficiency, telling Aurora that the world
Forgets
To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back
Those savage hungry dogs that hunt her down
To the empty grave of Christ ...
... Who has time,
An hour's time--think!--to sit upon a bank
And hear the cymbal tinkle in white hands.
[Footnote: _Aurora Leigh_. See also the letter to Robert Browning,
February 17, 1845.]
The poet has, occasionally, plunged into the maelstrom of reform and
proved to such objectors that he can work as efficiently as they.
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