inefficiency, telling Aurora that the world

Forgets
To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back
Those savage hungry dogs that hunt her down
To the empty grave of Christ ...
... Who has time,
An hour's time--think!--to sit upon a bank
And hear the cymbal tinkle in white hands.
[Footnote: _Aurora Leigh_. See also the letter to Robert Browning,
February 17, 1845.]

The poet has, occasionally, plunged into the maelstrom of reform and
proved to such objectors that he can work as efficiently as they. Thomas
Hood, Whittier, and other poets have challenged the respect of the
Romney Leighs of the world. Yet one hesitates to make specialization in
reform the gauge of a poet's merit. Where, in that case, would Keats be
beside Hood? In our day, where would Sara Teasdale be beside Edwin
Markham? Is there not danger that the poet, once launched on a career as
an agitator, will no longer have time to dream dreams? If he bases his
claims of worth on his ability as a "carpet-duster," [Footnote: See
_Aurora Leigh_.] as Mrs. Browning calls the agitator, he is merely
unsettling society,--for what end? He himself will soon have
forgotten--will have become as salt that has lost its savor. Nothing is
more disheartening than to see men straining every nerve to make other
men righteous, who have themselves not the faintest appreciation of the
beauty of holiness. Let reformers beware how they assert the poet's
uselessness, our singers say, for it is an indication that they
themselves are blind to the light toward which they profess to be
leading men. The work of the reformer inevitably degenerates into the