Song also illuminates and strengthens and vivifies all common life, and on this account what is left of our peasantry have harvest songs, and there are songs for mowing and songs for the midwinter rest, and there is even a song in the south of England for the gathering of honey, which song, if you have not heard it, though it is commonly known, runs thus:-- _Bees of bees of Paradise, Do the work of Jesus Christ, Do the work which no man can. God made man, and man made money, God made bees and bees made honey. God made big men to plough, to reap, and to sow, God made little boys to keep off the rook and the crow._ This song is sung for pleasure, and, by the way of singing it, it is made to scan. Indeed, all men sing at their labour, or would so sing did not dead convention forbid them. You will say there are exceptions, as lawyers, usurers, and others; but there are no exceptions to this rule where all the man is working and is working well, and is producing and is not ashamed. Rowers sing, and their song is called a Barcarolle; and even men holding the tiller who have nothing to do but hold it tend to sing a song. And I will swear to this that I have heard stokers when they were hard pressed starting a sort of crooning chorus together, which shows that there is hope for us all. The great Poets who are chiefly this, men capable of perfect expression (though of no more feeling than any other of their kind), are dignified by Song, much more than by any others of their forms of power. Consider that song of Du Bellay’s which he translated out of the Italian, and in which he has the winnower singing as he turns the winnowing fan. That is great expression, because no man can read it without feeling that if ever he had to do the hard work of winnowing this is the song he would like to sing. Song also is the mistress of memory, and though a scent is more powerful, a song is more general, as an instrument for the resurrection of lost things. Thus exiles who of all men on earth suffer most deeply, most permanently, and most fruitfully, are great makers of songs. The chief character in songs--that almost any man can write them, that any man at all can sing them, and that the greatest are anonymous--is never better proved than in this quality of the songs of exiles. There is a Highland song of which I have been told, written in the Celtic dialect and translated again into English by I know not whom, which, for all its unknown authorship (and I believe its authorship to be unknown) enshrines that radiantly beautiful line: And we in dreams behold the Hebrides. The last anonymous piece of silver that was struck in the mint of the Roman language has that same poignant quality. Exul quid vis canere? All the songs that men make (and they are powerful ones) regretting youth are songs of exile, and in a sense (it is a high and true sense) the mighty hymns are songs of exile also. Qui vitam sine termino Nobis donet in patria,