after Why and What and How long?  Who are meant by Them in the line beginning “Only lets”?  Why does the author say that the prisons are filled with ill-used laborers?  What does she mean by saying that the prisoners are “bruised for our iniquities”?  What is gained here by using the language of the Bible? The all-but-human means “almost intelligent”—­referring to machinery.  Does the author mean to praise the “sovereign Few”?  Who are these “Few magnificent”?  Are they really to blame for the sufferings of the poor? Himself in the line beginning “Of that lost,” refers to God.  What is meant here by “a new Heaven and a new Earth”?  What is “this dishonored Star”?  What conditions does the author think will bring back the singing man?  Are they possible conditions?

Re-read the poem, thinking of the author’s protest against the sufferings of the poor and the selfishness of the rich.  What do you think of the poem?

COLLATERAL READINGS

The Singing Man and Other Poems Josephine Preston Peabody
The Piper " " "
The Singing Leaves " " "
Fortune and Men’s Eyes " " "
The Wolf of Gubbio " " "
The Man with the Hoe Edwin Markham

THE DANCE OF THE BON-ODORI

LAFCADIO HEARN

(From Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Volume I, Chapter VI)

I

At last, from the verge of an enormous ridge, the roadway suddenly slopes down into a vista of high peaked roofs of thatch and green-mossed eaves—­into a village like a colored print out of old Hiroshige’s picture-books, a village with all its tints and colors precisely like the tints and colors of the landscape in which it lies.  This is Kami-Ichi, in the land of Hoki.

We halt before a quiet, dingy little inn, whose host, a very aged man, comes forth to salute me; while a silent, gentle crowd of villagers, mostly children and women, gather about the kuruma to see the stranger, to wonder at him, even to touch his clothes with timid smiling curiosity.  One glance at the face of the old inn-keeper decides me to accept his invitation.  I must remain here until to-morrow:  my runners are too wearied to go farther to-night.

Weather-worn as the little inn seemed without, it is delightful within.  Its polished stairway and balconies are speckless, reflecting like mirror-surfaces the bare feet of the maid-servants; its luminous rooms are fresh and sweet-smelling as when their soft mattings were first laid down.  The carven pillars of the alcove (toko) in my chamber, leaves and flowers chiseled in some black rich wood, are wonders; and the kakemono