ballad revival of the nineteenth century.

It is idle to speculate what would have been the progress of poetry in
England if the Renaissance had not come and the Elizabethan courtier had
not enriched himself at the expense of the people. What we have to bear
in mind is that all through the centuries that followed the Renaissance
the working men and women of England looked almost in vain to their poets
for a faithful interpretation of their life and aims. The wonder
is that the instinct for poetry did not perish in their hearts for
lack of sustenance.

There are at the present time clear signs of a revival of popular poetry
and popular drama. The verse tales of Masefield and Gibson, the lyrics of
Patrick MacGill, the peasant or artisan plays which have been produced at
the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, may well be
the beginning of a great democratic literary movement. Democracy, in its
striving after a richer and fuller life for the people of England, is at
last turning its attention to literature and art. It is slowly realising
two great truths. The first is that literature may be used as a mighty
weapon in the furtherance of political justice and social reform, and that
the pied pipers of folk-song have the power to rouse the nation and charm
the ears of even the Mother of Parliaments. The second is that the
working man needs something more to sustain him than bread and the
franchise and a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. Democracy, having
obtained for the working man a place in the government of the nation, is
now asserting his claim to a place in the temples of poetry. The
Arthurian knight, the Renaissance courtier, the scholar and the wit must
admit the twentieth-century artisan to their circle. Piers the ploughman
must once more become the hero of song, and Saul Kane, the poacher, must
find a place, alongside of Tiresias and Merlin, among the seers and