"`We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, To relieve, O God, what manner of ills? -- The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die; And so do we, and the world's a sty; Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and cry? "Swinehood hath no remedy" Say many men, and hasten by, Clamping the nose and blinking the eye. But who said once, in the lordly tone, "Man shall not live by bread alone But all that cometh from the throne"? Hath God said so? But Trade saith "No": And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say "Go: There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know. Move out, if you think you're underpaid. The poor are prolific; we're not afraid; Trade is Trade."' "Thereat this passionate protesting Meekly changed, and softened till It sank to sad requesting And suggesting sadder still: `And oh, if men might some time see How piteous-false the poor decree That trade no more than trade must be! Does business mean, "Die, you -- live, I"? Then "Trade is trade" but sings a lie: 'Tis only war grown miserly. If business is battle, name it so.'"** -- * `The Symphony', ll. 1-2. ** `The Symphony', ll. 31-61. -- Of even wider sweep than mercantilism is the spirit of intolerance; for, while the diffusion of knowledge and of grace has in a measure repressed this spirit, it lacks much of being subdued. I do not wonder that Lanier "fled in tears from men's ungodly quarrel about God," and that, in his poem entitled `Remonstrance', he denounces intolerance with all the vehemence of a prophet of old.