ABSTRACT
Those who feared that Mr. William Morris would be made less of a poet by his Socialism have had ample reason to be disappointed; it was a false alarm. If by Socialism he meant, not the articles of a programme, but a passion for equal justice, a sympathy with outcast classes, and a vision of coming redress, then Socialism has done its part towards giving Mr. Morris'swork a strength and substance which in the days of the Earthly Paradise it could not always claim. The song once too languorous vibrates oftener; the faint voices ofthose pale shadows, who moved, 'strengthless heads ofthe dead,' breathing eternal regrets as they vanished into their luminous mist, have begun to speak in more human tones. Weare not, indeed, told the dates ofthe various piecesnow given us for the first time; but some of them appear recent, and it is not impertinent to say that they are written under a different inspiration to any with which readers of Mr. Morris's previous verses are familiar.
