In four quick lines, Shelley gives you a snapshot of pure, unfiltered spite. A person labeled simply “a hater” settles by a ditch — a low, neglected spot that suits his mood — and picks up an old cracked lute. The instrument is broken, so what comes out isn’t music but a screech, a raw blast of loathing aimed at a woman he calls a brute. The speaker doesn’t explain why he hates her or what she did; the focus is the ugliness of the emotion itself. The hater’s art has decayed into noise, just as his feelings have curdled into something barely human. The mood is grim and almost grotesquely absurd — you can picture the sneer, the twisted hands on ruined strings. There’s no redemption or softening, only a hateful little anti-song delivered from the gutter. The cracked lute becomes a mirror for the brokenness festering inside the singer.
A Hate-Song — Summary
A hater he came and sat by a ditch, And he took an old cracked lute; And he sang a song which was more of a screech 'Gainst a woman that was a brute.