Another Link in the Chain of Complaints

In looking through some more sonnets, I happened upon one Ebenezer Elliot, a working man with bare rudiments of an education who was quite a capable poet. He achieved fame writing poems against the Corn Laws, basically tax regulations from what I can make out. (And the wheel of heaven turns round again, you Tea Partiers...)


This particular sonnet really appeals to me, partially because it echoes an argument I've read in a dozen sources if I've read it in one. Namely, that there's too many poets, too few readers of poetry and hardly any poetry buyers at all. What I find unique is that this particular piece dates back to the early 1800s. 


I've never read any history of poetry readership. In fact, from a quick scan of the interwebs it seems a topic ripe for thesis which is as yet ungleaned. But we can at least establish that for the past two hundred years (at a minimum) this same tale gets told of a Golden Age when every man was a poet, vast sums were spent on collections and anthologies of verse, and a new work by a renowned versifier could electrify a town and bring either clamor or renown upon the laureate's head. Each iteration of this bewailing cry seems to get louder and more insistent, but I'm still looking for artifacts and fossils in the strata that give credence to this paleo-poesy. 

"In these days. . ."

Ebenezer Elliott

In these days, every mother's son or daughter
Writes verse, which no one reads except the writer,
Although, uninked, the paper would be whiter,
And worth, per ream, a hare, when you have caught her.
Hundreds of unstaunched Shelleys daily water
Unanswering dust; a thousand Wordsworths scribble;
And twice a thousand Corn Law Rhymers dribble
Rhymed prose, unread. Hymners of fraud and slaughter,
By cant called other names, alone find buyers--
Who buy, but read not. "What a loss in paper,"
Groans each immortal of the host of sighers!
"What profanation of the midnight taper
In expirations vile! But I write well,
And wisely print. Why don't my poems sell?"




Side note: Elliott also penned this poem which was bandied about as an official hymn for the transitory League of Nations and later incorporated into one of the few musicals I can actually stand, "Godspell."

The People's Anthem

Ebenezer Elliott

When wilt thou save the people?
Oh, God of mercy! when?
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of thy heart, oh, God, are they!
Let them not pass, like weeds, away!
Their heritage a sunless day!
God! save the people!