10. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Cry of the Children" was a protest against what?
From Quiz The Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Answer:
Child Labor
The poem was first published in "Blackwood's Magazine" in 1843 and was a protest against the exploitation of children for manual labor. It comes in a long line of literary protests against such exploitations, such as William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" in 1794. Outcries of this kind eventually led to the reform of child labor laws. In 1847, work hours for children were limited to ten a day, and in 1901, the minimum age for labor was raised to 12.
The poem rails against the use of children in the mines and factories:
"Go out, children, from the mine and from the city -
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do -
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!"
The poem starkly describes the children's suffering in the factories:
"Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
Is not all the life God fashions or reveals -
Let them prove their inward souls against the notion
That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! -
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
As if Fate in each were stark;
And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark."