"
Alas, for the poor to have some part
In yon sweet living lands of art.
Then the flute -- Lanier's own flute, summing up the voices of nature,
"all fair forms, and sounds, and lights" -- echoes the words of the Master,
"All men are neighbors." Trade, the king of the modern days,
will not allow the poor a glimpse of "the outside hills of liberty".
The clarionet is the voice of a lady who speaks of the merchandise of love
and yearns for the old days of chivalry before trade had withered up
love's sinewy prime: --
If men loved larger, larger were our lives;
And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives.
To her the bold, straightforward horn answers, "like any knight
in knighthood's morn." He would bring back the age of chivalry,
when there would be "contempts of mean-got gain and hates of inward stain."
He voices, too, the idea long ago expressed by Milton that men should be
as pure as women: --
Shall woman scorch for a single sin,
That her betrayer may revel in,
And she be burnt, and he but grin
When that the flames begin,
Fair lady?
Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea,
`We maids would far, far whiter be
If that our eyes might sometimes see
Men maids in purity.'
Then the hautboy sings, "like any large-eyed child," calling for
simplicity and naturalness in this modern life. And all join at the last
in a triumphant chant of the power of love to heal all the ills of life: --
And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying,
And ever Love hears the women's sighing,
And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying,
And ever wise childhood's deep implying,
But never a trader's glozing and lying.
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