In William Morris's "The Day is Coming," the poet contrasts a dystopian capitalist society with a more Communist or Socialist society, where wealth is evenly distriubuted and "all Mine and Thine shall be Ours" (stanza 10). Though the speaker begins by optimistically suggesting that one day English citizens will enjoy a better life than they now do, he or she also uses cynical language to depict the current circumstances of those he addresses, comparing their lodgings to those of "swine" (stanza 4). The speaker continues to describe the flaws of his society in an optimistic way, prophesizing that the future holds none of the hunger, fatigue and jealousy of earnings that he observed in his current surroundings; he predicts that whereas the worker contemporary with the speaker may work in vain, the worker of the future will reap all of the benefits he will sow.
The speaker also points to the nature and the artists of the past, the "homes of ancient stories" (stanza 13) in the poet's mind and the artist's hand, as enriching the future in ways that money supposedly enriches the present. Instead of gold, the speaker lauds things available to all people that may be distributed evenly, "nor shall any lack a share" (stanza 15).
The poem ends by revisiting the dramatic unhappiness of the speaker's present, an urban landscape filled with "ghosts" (stanza 19) haunting the memories of their sordid, unhappy lives, and with the speaker invoking his or her listeners to "answer and hasten" (stanza 22) to reform the current capitalist society.
Questions
1. What similarities exist between the Medieval society Morris admired and a Communist or Socialist society? What kinds of ideals do they both possess, and what are some differences between them?
2. What other poems that we've discussed employ the same direct, confrontational tone as this one? How do the morals contained in this poem differ from those we've studied?
3. In the last stanza, Morris refers to the "Dawn and the Day." Why does he choose to capitalize these words? Do they have religious significance?
4. Morris writes,
Come, join in the only battle
wherein no man can fail,
Where whoso fadeth and dieth,
yet his deed shall still prevail.
Does Morris invoke the Chivalric code's sense of honor in this stanza? Or could his language describe traditional Christian ideas of judgment? What kind of contrast does Morris create by the juxtaposing the fading of a person's life and the lasting impact of his societal actions?
Last modified 24 November 2004