_Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred?_ _And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme-- When Nature in her nakedness Defeats us every time?_ It is not learning, grace nor gear, Nor easy meat and drink, But bitter pinch of pain and fear That makes creation think. When in this world's unpleasing youth Our god-like race began, The longest arm, the sharpest tooth, Gave man control of man; Till, bruised and bitten to the bone And taught by pain and fear, He learned to deal the far-off stone, And poke the long, safe spear. So tooth and nail were obsolete As means against a foe, Till, bored by uniform defeat, Some genius built the bow. Then stone and javelin proved as vain As old-time tooth and nail, Ere, spurred anew by fear and pain, Man fashioned coats of mail. Then was there safety for the rich And danger for the poor, Till someone mixed a powder which Redressed the scale once more. Helmet and armour disappeared With sword and bow and pike, And, when the smoke of battle cleared, All men were armed alike.... And when ten million such were slain To please one crazy king, Man, schooled in bulk by fear and pain, Grew weary of the thing; And, at the very hour designed, To enslave him past recall, His tooth-stone-arrow-gun-shy mind Turned and abolished all. * * * * * _All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob Whose head has grown too large, Ends by destroying its own job And earns its own discharge._ _And Man, whose mere necessities Move all things from his path, Trembles meanwhile at their decrees, And deprecates their wrath!_ THE DEAD KING (EDWARD VII.) 1910 _Who in the Realm to-day lays down dear life for the sake of a land more dear? And, unconcerned for his own estate, toils till the last grudged sands have run? Let him approach. It is proven here Our King asks nothing of any man more than Our King himself has done._ For to him above all was Life good, above all he commanded Her abundance full-handed. The peculiar treasure of Kings was his for the taking: All that men come to in dreams he inherited waking:-- His marvel of world-gathered armies--one heart and all races, His seas 'neath his keels when his war-castles foamed to their places; The thundering foreshores that answered his heralded landing; The huge lighted cities adoring, the assemblies upstanding; The Councils of Kings called in haste to learn how he was minded-- The Kingdoms, the Powers, and the Glories he dealt with unblinded.