SOURCE: "Society" and "Politics," in The Rebirth of England and English: The Vision of William Barnes, Anglo-Saxon Books, 1996, pp. 55-68 and 83-93.

In the following excerpt, Phillips looks at the social and political views Barnes expressed in his poetry and prose writings.

Society

 Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. 

Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village

The enclosing of the commons robbed the country folk in England of leisure and independence, the coming of the factories took them from the fields and the old communities, and flung them into the new ones, which were allowed to grow up anyhow, without art, without thought, without faith or hope or charity, till the face of the land was blackened, and the soul of the land under a cloud.

John Masefield, St. George and the Dragon

… Barnes' values were to a great extent shaped...