Politics, Literature, and Romantic Poetry

I spent part of today selectively reading parts of The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House by John F. Harris. This is kind of background reading for work, but I liked it very much. Harris is a reporter, formerly of The Washington Post and now of the always-interesting politics web site Politico.
I think journalism is the ideal genre for writing about politics. Fiction, on the other hand, is best for writing about love and religion. Fiction and journalism are both good for writing about social issues, for example The Grapes of Wrath, which started as journalism and then became a novel. There are probably lots of exceptions to these overly broad generalizations, but what the heck.
Another political/literary connection that's been on my mind: Last week I read a column by Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. She's consistently interesting, too. She was reacting to Obama's speech on race, and here's just a snippet of what she said:

Near the end of the speech, Mr. Obama painted an America that didn’t summon thoughts of Faulkner but of William Blake. The bankruptcies, the dark satanic mills, the job loss and corporate corruptions.

Maybe I'm being too literal, but I really don't think William Blake is the right author to make that point. The better reference, I think, would be Charles Dickens. But maybe "Dickensian" has become an overused perjorative. I don't think Blake was concerned with corporations, but possibly I'm wrong. I'd like to hear from the Pisan Circle (former Romantic Era Poetry classmates) on this one.
Of course all this gives me an excuse to copy one of my favorite poems from Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This is from Songs of Innocence:

THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry ‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said,
‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head’s bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’

And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!—
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:
And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:
So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.