First of all one should introduce the poem itself:
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the Lords who lay you low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care,
The rich robes your tyrants wear?
Wherefore feed, and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who
Drain your sweat – nay, drink your blood!
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.
Sow seed – but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth – let no impostor heap;
Weave robes – let not the idle wear;
Forge arms – in your defence to bear.
With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding sheet, till fair
England be your sepulcher.
The text poem in details and its translation into Russian, made by S.Y. Marshak can be seen in Supplement №1.
The song «To the Men of England» was written by Shelley in 1818, while he was staying in Italy. It is an expression of his indignation at the cruelty of capitalist exploitation. Thus it is imbued with bitter irony and wrath. The poem is built on a contrast between «Men of England» – the labourers, who create real value, and the lords – «the ungrateful drones» who exploit the toilers – «drink their blood». Thus, at first look it is quite obvious that this song is meant to be an empowering anthem for the workers of England. However, upon closer examination, it becomes quite clear that Shelley’s message may be a little bit more complicated than it seems. [14]
The poem possesses many confusing paradoxes, it is dominated by paradox. With all these features Shelley’s intentions no longer seem to be clear. However, when all of them are put together, it can be seen that the negative and cynical aspects of the poem serve to make «To the Men of England» not just a cry of empowerment, but an urgent, stirring call to action for the labourers of he country.
The first paradox arises in lines seven and eight:
«Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain you sweat-nay, drink your blood!»
In these lines the author refers to the lords of workers as «ungrateful drones». A drone is defined as a male bee that neither works nor does any harm, because it is stingless. So, this part undermines the power of the workers’ lords, insults them and makes a mockery at them. However, the idea of lords being harmless and lazy is immediately followed by a very disturbing statement «drink your blood», which changes the tone of the message completely. Not only do the lords have power to drain the sweat out of workers, but they drink their blood! The lords are compared to vampires, immortal bloodsuckers who render their victims powerless and dead.
The same paradoxical idea appears throughout the poem. The author treats the lords as tyrants in lines four and twenty-one, indicating their powers as absolute. At the same time he calls them «stingless drones» in lines eleven and idle in line twenty-three, rendering them powerless and ridiculous.
So, what are the lords? How does the poet want the reader to see them? Are they powerless, lazy drones or tyrannical, immortal vampires, sucking the blood and life out of their victims?
Solving another mystery of the poem can answer these questions. In the last two stanzas the poem takes a dramatic turn. The poet shifts from commanding the workers to work for themselves and overthrow their tyrants to hide in their cellars, holes and cells (line twenty-five) and to build their graves. But the last stanza seems to insult the workers and to surrender hope for them. It ends the poem in a dreary note, telling the workers to «Trace your grave and build your tomb, And weave your winding-sheet till fair, England be your sepulcher.» (lines thirty to thirty-two). Now, it seems as if the author has been insulting the workers all along. He tells them that they allow themselves to be bullied by lazy, harmless men so that they may as well just build their own graves. His language shifts from romantic and sensitive in the beginning of the poem, to harsh, dark monosyllabic words, like «with plough and spade and hoe and loom, Trace your grave and build your tomb» in the last stanza. Thus, the author delivers the hammering effect. As a result, the last stanza creates a sense of urgency and anger, making its message stand out from the rest of the poem.
So, has the poem been trying to empower workers all along or has it been contemptuously criticizing them? The answer is actually both. Though the last stanza serves to offset the rest of the poem, it doesn’t overpower the initial message of the empowerment. Instead, it actually emphasizes the message. Throughout the beginning of the poem, the author is really pointing out the way things are. He recognizes the absurdity and unfairness of things. Then, in the middle he tells the workers how it should be:
«Sow seed-but let not tyrant reap;
Find wealth, – let no imposter heap;
Weave robes, – let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, – in your defence to bear.» (lines twenty-one to twenty-four).
And finally, the last stanzas come. The last two stanzas again tell the workers of how things are:
«Ye see The steel ye tempered glance on ye». (lines twenty-seven to twenty-eight).
Basically, he tells the workers that they are digging their own graves by giving power to their initially harmless lords. Here, commanding them to dig their graves is different from the commands he gave them in lines twenty-one to twenty-four. By telling them to dig their graves, he is simply telling them what is going to happen if they continue to live with how things are.
What is actually happening is a juxtaposition of two ideas: of how things are, how things should be, and how things are again. In this way, the poet successfully delivers an image, a message. He successfully shows the contrast between the two ideas by sandwiching one inside the repetitions of the other. The middle idea, lines twenty-one to twenty-four, which is that of empowerment, then becomes like a bright, red flower sticking out amidst a dark, dreary landscape of reality. Furthermore, the last stanzas delivering the final repetition of the initial imagery are so dark and urgent with a hint of insult that it stirs the emotion of the reader. A worker reading the poem would have been angered by the last stanza and be stirred to follow true message of the poem in order to prevent the ending from becoming a reality.