|
Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
contents
| previous
| next
EUROPE,
The 72d and 73d Years of These States.
SUDDENLY out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, |
Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself, |
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to the throats
of kings.
|
O aching close of exiled patriots' lives! |
Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh. |
And you, paid to defile the People—you liars, mark! |
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, |
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his
simplicity the poor man's wages,
|
For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and laugh'd
at in the breaking,
|
View Page 212
|
Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike revenge,
or the heads of the nobles fall;
|
The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings. |
But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and the
frighten'd monarchs come back,
|
Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, |
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant. |
Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape, |
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in
scarlet folds,
|
Whose face and eyes none may see, |
Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm, |
One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the head of a
snake appears.
|
Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody corpses of
young men,
|
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are
flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud,
|
And all these things bear fruits, and they are good. |
Those corpses of young men, |
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, those hearts pierc'd by
the gray lead,
|
Cold and motionless as they seem live elsewhere with unslaugh-
ter'd vitality.
|
They live in other young men O kings! |
They live in brothers again ready to defy you, |
They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted. |
Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom but grows seed for free-
dom, in its turn to bear seed,
|
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the
snows nourish.
|
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, |
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling,
cautioning.
|
Liberty, let others despair of you—I never despair of you. |
Is the house shut? is the master away? |
Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching, |
He will soon return, his messengers come anon. |
contents
| previous
| next
|
| |