Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849) was an ironworker and a minor poet of the Victorian Era. The poem below was published in A Victorian Anthology, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman and published by the Houghton Mifflin Company in 1895.

After each part of the poem in bold, I have included my paraphrase and notes. At the end is my commentary on the poem.

A Poet’s Epitaph

Stop, mortal! Here thy brother lies—
The poet of the poor.
His books were rivers, woods, and skies,
The meadow and the moor;
His teachers were the torn heart’s wail,
The tyrant and the slave,
The street, the factory, the jail,
The palace—and the grave.

[An epitaph is a short piece of writing, often engraved on a tombstone, about a dead person. This poem is a longer epitaph describing the character of a deceased poet. The epitaph is probably about the author of the poem, but I am not sure. It asks the passerby to stop and learn about the deceased “poet of the poor,” who learned from nature, from broken hearts, and from the common situations and institutions of society.]

Sin met thy brother everywhere!
And is thy brother blamed?
From passion, danger, doubt, and care,
He no exemption claimed.

[The poet found sin wherever he went, but he didn’t claim to be different from others since he experienced the same feelings and flaws as everyone else.]

The meanest thing, earth’s feeblest worm,
He feared to scorn or hate;
But, honoring in a peasant’s form
The equal of the great,
He blessed the steward, whose wealth makes
The poor man’s little, more;
He loathed the haughty wretch that takes
From plundered labor’s store.

[He didn’t want to hate or overlook the smallest animal. He felt that peasants were not insignificant people, but rather were as important as the wealthy. He said good things about the managers who gave to the poor. He hated the proud ones who took money that working men had earned.]

A hand to do, a head to plan,
A heart to feel and dare—
Tell man’s worst foes, here lies the man
Who drew them as they are.

[The poet was a man of action, thought,  feeling, and courage. The enemies of the people were described accurately by the poet.]

Commentary

The poet describes himself as a poet of the common people, and he can identify with them because he has some of the same faults. He seems to be both proud and humble. He is humble in admitting some of his faults, but proud to point out the faults of “man’s worst foes.” The poet claims that he “drew them as they were.”

However, pointing out the faults of others doesn’t always have the intended effect of encouraging people to repent and reform themselves. It can make people feel hate and resentment towards those who point out their sins, crimes, or faults.

On the other hand, if we only see the negative parts of people, doesn’t that show that we are biased in some way? Why would we rather point out people’s faults than their virtues? Perhaps this is because we know that we ourselves have faults and we want to appear virtuous and good in comparison to someone else.

But as long as we focus more on the negative, we will overlook the positive, and society will be analogous to people pulling each other into the mud. That’s not to say that people don’t have faults or that there aren’t injustices in society. But people are more inclined to change internally when they see a reward for being good than a punishment for being bad. And when we learn that virtue brings its own reward, we will finally be on our way to lasting reform.