POETRY.

TO A SOCIALIST FRIEND.

BECAUSE I cannot share your creed

You doubt my heart, insult my reason ; With "blindness," "levity," and " greed " In turn your eloquence you season.

The maxims of your fervid school

Don't err from over-toleration; He must be either knave or fool

Who will not let you save the nation.

You tell us how the poor are ground In factories and dens of sweaters ; How we and they alike are bound In iron or in golden fetters.

You marvel that we hug our chains ; You taunt us with our meek enduring Of evils that your wiser brains Alone possess the art of curing.

You think, forsooth, we have not felt That cloud of human care and sorrow, Because we fear it will not melt Before your magic wand to- morrow.

Your passionate exordium spare, And spare us, too, your pero- ration; The argument is rather bare When only rich in declama- tion.

Have you discovered, you alone ! The squalid village, sordid city ?

We too—our hearts are not of Bt011e-

Possess some rudiments of pity.

'Tis just because we so deplore The ills of poverty and famine, That, lest you aggravate them more, Your panacea we cross-ex- amine.

My doctor, say, for my disease Prescribes but exercise and tonic.

You scoff at remedies like these : "Mere palliatives to make it chronic!"

No! I must stand upon my head To keep the gout from upwards rising,

And swallow the East-wind for bread—

It's lighter and more appetising.

I hint that what you recommend May be too thin for my diges- tion ;

The one reply you condescend : "What folly thus to beg the question !"

But when I learn that first on me You try this regimen and diet, "Ah ! not in meo corpore," I cry, "experimentum flat."

When we object, that you refrain From practising what you've expounded, You answer : "Socialism is vain By private enterprise sur- rounded."

But, if we give you larger rope, Are you not in the same con- dition ?

Collectivism here must cope With ruthless world-wide competition.

If labour still must buy our wheat.

Where is your paradise of workers ?

If, making less, we've less to eat, The poor go hungry through the shirkers.

But my dilemma you decline; Base bonds of foreign trade you sever;

'Neath figless tree and grape- less vino

You feed upon yourselves for ever.

Yet, wherefore need I criticise Each detail of your dream fantastic?

Much deeper down the problem lies : How far is human nature plastic ?

That it may change I do not doubt, Since other times have ogler fashions; But you are reckoning without The primary instincts and passions.

For man, that perverse, curious beast,

The product of a thousand ages,

With freedom's sauce the sparest feast Prefers to well-provided cages.

When each has got his task assigned By the elect who give the orders, A " Merrie England" we shall find Of convicts and of prison- warders !

You tell me I mistake your plan ; The force behind it is religious ; The sense of brotherhood in man Will sanctify that change pro- digious.

Ah, friend ! Think not that I dispute

Religion's power to make and mould us ; To sweeten earth ; our life trans- mute ; I know the half has not been told us.

But, as experience oft has taught Religion thrives not on com- pulsion; Enforced conversion ever brought Its after-crop of mad revulsion.

A hundred years ago in France, When men by law were made fraternal,

There followed what a furies- dance Of horror and of hate infer- nal!

In every Kingdom of the Saints Power falls to hypocrites and toadies ; The weak bear all the harsh restraints,

But quis custodiet custodes?

Though when a scheme is proved absurd, We are not bound to show a better, Yet I will add one other word By way of postscript to my letter.

Our policy of Zaissez-faire, Abhorred of all your tribe and faction, It is no gospel of despair, But faith in liberty of action. Although we do not underrate The boon of governmental science, The master-builders of our fate Are character and self- reliance.

The State were but an empty shell Without them, undermined and hollow ; Where these are present all is well; In God's good time the rest shall follow.

R. H. LAW.