PREFACE. THIS poem, which a sense of decorum, but not common sense, forbade me to call The Hodgiad, was conceived some ten years ago, at a time, that is, when 1 was closely in touch with the hero of it. I have been at work upon it or concerned about it ever since. Its subject is as old as England, but the point of view, I think, is novel therefore I offer a few words of explanation of its scope. It will be seen by any one who chooses to reflect upon it that this country holds two classes of persons, a governing class, and a governed class. Herein it does not differ perhaps from a good many other undemocratic states but it differs remarkably in this, that with us the governing and the governed classes are two separate nations. By race the governed are British with a strong English mixture of blood the governing class is by race even now preponderatingly Latin-French with a Scandinavian admixture by tradition, breeding, and education it is entirely so. All the apparatus, all the science, all the circumstance of govern merit are still Norman. It may be that the governed race has been granted, between 1832 and 1883, an increasing share in government. It has been ganted it, but has not taken it up. Now, speaking generally, this Song of the Plow is a history of the governed race from the date of the Norman Conquest, that successful raid made a conquest by the acquiescence of the raided, when foreigners acquired an ascendancy which they have never yet dropped. Not only so, but they have never yet ceased to be foreign to the race which they rule. The tale, in its parts, may be the stuff for prose in its broad outlines, in its masses of lights and darks, it is a highly poetical subject. In its process of obstinate, fluctuating conflict between privilege and custom, between instinct to rule and instinct to be free, it is an epic subject, perhaps the only real one left... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.