_Riches, a vos plaisirs faites participer L'homme que les malheurs s'acharnent a frapper Oh, faites travailler le pere de famille, Pour qu'il puisse arbiter la pudeur de sa fille, Pourqu'aux petits enfants maigris par les douleurs Il rapporte, le soir, le pain et non des pleurs, Afin que son epouse, au desespoir en proie, Se ranime a sa vue et l'embrasse avec joie, Afin qua l'Eternel, a l'heure de sa mort. Vous n'offriez pas un coeur carie de remords_.

The expression certainly leaves much to be desired in these poems, but they are not lacking in eloquence. We had already had something of this kind, though, written by a poet who was not a bricklayer. He, too, had asked the rich the question following:

_Dans vos fetes d'hiver, riches, heureux du monde, Quand le bal tournoyant de ses feux vous inonde. . . Songez-vous qu'il est la, sous le givre et la neige, Ce pere sans travail que la famine assiege?_

He advises them to practise charity, the sister of prayer.

_Donnez afin qu'un jour, a votre derniere heure,

Contre tous vos peches vous ayez la Priere

D'un mendiant puissant au ciel_."

We cannot, certainly, expect Poncy to be a Victor Hugo. But as we had Victor Hugo's verses, of what use was it for them to be rewritten by Poncy? My reason for quoting a few of the fine lines from _Feuilles d'automne_ is that I felt an urgent need of clearing away all these platitudes. Poncy was not the only working-man poet. Other trades produced their poets too. The first poem in _Marines_ is addressed to Durand, a poet carpenter, who introduces himself as "_Enfant de la foret qui ceint Fontainebleau_."